Boston Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis thought when Aaron Hernandez fiancee Shayanna Jenkins took the stand on friday she was going to be like a scene out the movie B.A.P.S. Gelzinis was so surprised by Shayanna Jenkins he chose to write a 2000 word piece on Shayanna’s poise. So shocked that Jenkins didn’t smack her lips, speak incomplete sentences or didn’t argue with whoever would not agree. Much to Gelzinis shock Shayanna wasn’t a walking stereotype. Shayanna was capable of answering questions.
To be honest, Shayanna Jenkins was not at all what I expected. From those icy stares Aaron Hernandez’s fiancee has flashed in her previous appearances at the Fall River courthouse, I braced myself for Lil’ Kim.
But what I got Friday from Shayanna’s first appearance in the witness chair was a lot closer to Halle Berry.
I was not prepared for her composure, or the graceful way she kept deflecting so many of Bristol County prosecutor William McCauley’s questions with, “I don’t recall.”
Not a grunt. Not a snarl. No curses mumbled under her breath that would force the judge to remind her she was in a court of law.
In short, Shayanna Jenkins betrayed no echo of the mean streets and dance joints that her $40 million tattooed fiance liked to haunt in those evil hours before the dawn.
Shayanna even sounded a bit like Martha Stewart when she talked about cooking breakfast and preparing smoothies for the likes of Hernandez and his deadbeat buddies, Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, the morning after Odin Lloyd’s murder.
Spoken like a woman who should have married someone like Julian Edelman or Malcolm Butler, instead of the thug who texted pathetic notes like this after an all-night blowout: “Too (expletive) up an O (Lloyd) took care of me. … I jus woke up buggin im sorry and on way home.”
When McCauley asked Jenkins what she thought “buggin ” meant, this woman wrinkled her beautiful face into a frown and said, “Out of your element.”
How’s that for trying to put lipstick on a pig?
I think we have a good idea on how Gelzinis sees black women from “Mean Streets” and “Dance Joints”.
Gelzinis stereotyped Jenkins from the moment he saw her entering the courtroom. Gelzinis ignorance was proven wrong. There are ways to make your point about a situation without horribly stereotyping an entire race and Gelzinis failed miserably at that. By the way Halle Berry has been married more times than Lil Kim.