The “star witness” for the prosecution in the Trayvon Martin murder case seems to have become the star witness for the defense during her testimony over the past two days. While on the stand for a stunning seven hours the first day of what turned into a two day stint. If you are unfamiliar with Ms. Jeantel, let me bring you up to speed. She is the 19 year old Miami, Florida resident who was the last person to speak with Trayvon Martin the night he was shot, and she was reportedly on the phone with him during the beginning of the altercation that ended with his death.

Ms. Jeantel’s testimony was filled with enlightening insights into the case, such as the revelation that Martin reportedly referred to Zimmerman as a “creepy ass cracker”, which Ms. Jeantel assured the prosecution was a “cultural” reference. At least she would have if she had known what the meaning of the word culture was. She also became testy with Mr. Zimmerman’s attorney when he questioned her about inconsistencies in her testimony, such as the information she had given Mr. Martin’s parents about what she knew about their son’s death, and the reason she had given them for skipping Mr. Martin’s funeral.

Ms. Jeantel’s credibility was further damaged when it was discovered on Thursday that her Twitter account had suddenly been scrubbed-reducing her number of Tweets from 206 to 146. Unfortunately for Ms. Jeantel, she seems not to have heard about the reality of things being “permanent” on the internet since a number of news outlets have not only reported on the scrubbing but have actually posted side by side comparisons of what her account looked like pre and post-scrub. Why would a 19 year old testifying in a high profile murder trial randomly decide to scrub her Twitter feed you ask? Well it seems that her Tweets revealed further lapses in judgement and integrity. Many of her deleted Tweets discuss under age drinking (hers) and drug use (also hers), while also using many colorful cultural references-one of which has recently cost Ms. Paula Deen multiple millions of dollars.

So why am I picking on this hapless young lady you ask? In fact it is not her, precisely, that I am picking on. She simply happens to be the latest example of this incredible double standard we have developed in our society when it comes to race, language and integrity. Ms. Jeantel Tweets the infamous “N word” as a “cultural” reference and the world snores in response. Jaime Fox describes “killing a bunch of white people” in “Django Unchained”, and the world utters a collective yawn. Paula Deen, a white Southern woman who is sixty plus years old admits to uttering the same word thirty years ago in response to having a gun placed to her head during a bank robbery-and her empire crumbles in 48 hours. I am simply aghast at how we got here.

When we elected our first black president, people thought that we has surpassed race in this great nation, and yet here we are just into his second term persecuting one race for the use of outmoded, and frankly disgustingly offensive, terminology and allowing all others to throw the same terms around as “cultural references” so that they can “take the term back”. Why anyone would want to take that particular term back is beyond me, dear reader.

The present administration is also a clear contributor to the loss of another value I mentioned above-integrity. Here is an administration who rules by Executive fiat simply because the head of it is unwilling, or just unable, to sit down with those who are across the aisle and have a productive discussion about-well anything from climate change to immigration. This attitude of “Well I am smarter than you, you voted me in so that proves it” has trickled down, like so much acid, into the collective consciousness into our society. Certainly, I am not saying that this administration is the only one who had this issue-it goes back many years-but the utter lack of integrity in government seems to have really come to a head in the past few years-need I repeat the one word that beautifully illustrates the lack of integrity in this administration? Benghazi-there I said it.

My real point here is that until we refuse to accept that kind of racially charged and inflammatory language to be used, and integrity to remain conspicuously absent in our civilized society, we will not have gotten past race and until we hold our leaders accountable, we will continue to see young people like Ms. Jeantel, and our “leaders”,  display a shocking lack of integrity.