Rebecca

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A Ten-Minute Play

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SCENE 1

District Court, Central Booking. October 6, 2020

(JAMAL and REBECCA enter the courtroom through the door marked “Exit.” JAMAL is holding a large number of manilla file folders with pale multi-colored paperwork in each file folder. JAMAL points to the far table.)

JAMAL

Stand right there. I’ll be with you in a moment.

(REBECCA pauses at JAMAL’S table.)
(JAMAL pointing.)

JAMAL

Over there. During Covid-19 the court hears one case at a time in order to facilitate social distancing.

REBECCA

I’m on your side — politically if not literally. Are you the District Attorney?

JAMAL

I am Assistant State’s Attorney Jamal Jefferson. You are…

REBECCA

Jamal, I’m Rebecca. Please feel free to call me Rebecca. My full name is Rebecca Roth.

JAMAL

Mr. Jefferson, or “Counsel” please.

REBECCA

Of course, Mr. Jefferson, I intended no slight. I am sure that if you read my file — do I really need to be here? I guarantee that you approve of my exercise of free speech.

(JAMAL looking through one manilla folder of legal paperwork.)

JAMAL

You are Rebecca Roth, correct?

(REBECCA slowly nods her head, with dignity and pride)

JAMAL

Well yes, you do need to be here. If you are convicted of violating your probation, you face a sentence up to the full amount of your prior suspended sentence — one year. Ms. Roth, do you have a lawyer because I don’t see an appearance of counsel notice in this file.

REBECCA

I don’t need a lawyer. The pig who busted me might need a lawyer when I am through with him. I was marching against Trump because I am part of Black Lives Matter — at least to me they do. Tell that to the pigs who killed George Floyd. Tell that to the pigs who killed Rayshard Brooks eleven days after I was busted, right

JAMAL

You can plead not guilty or guilty or guilty with an explanation. If you enter a guilty plea or guilty with an explanation, I will read the facts into the record and Judge …

(JAMAL moves a few steps toward the bench to read the name of the judge.)

JAMAL

Judge Ricardo Zwoboda — I presume you are on probation to him — Judge Zwoboda will decide what the sentence will be. It can be anything from continuing you on probation to making you serve the suspended one year of imprisonment. But, I don’t see Judge Zwoboda imposing time for this.

REBECCA

Guilty? I’m not guilty. Have you even heard of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Breonna Taylor?

JAMAL

I have. I am not sure how spitting at a police officer…

REBECCA

Pig

JAMAL

As I was trying to reference. You are charged in Washington, D.C. with spitting on a police officer while demonstrating. That charge violates your probation to Judge Zwoboda.

REBECCA

I spit on a pig who was pushing the crowd away from the park in front of the White House. The pig and Trump ought to be the ones you are putting in jail, not me.

(Jamal glances at his watch.)

JAMAL

Ms. Roth, if you want to stay out of jail, I would lose “pig” from my vocabulary.

REBECCA

Mr. Jefferson, or rather “Counsel.” Thank you for your legal advice on behalf of the State. When you send the bill is it signed Mr. Jefferson, or Mr. House Negro, or less formally, just your Uncle, your Uncle Tom.

JAMAL

Ms. Roth, forget any advice I gave you. But remember this: I am not a House Negro. I am not your Uncle Tom. You will refer to me as Mr. Jefferson

(REBECCA touches her finger to her lip as if silencing herself, while looking upward as if remembering something important.)

REBECCA

Mr. Jefferson. Easy to remember. One of America’s dead Presidents. Third as I recall, second slave owning President.

JAMAL

Alhamdulillah. (Praise be to God.)

REBECCA

Excuse me? You will refer to me as the “blacker than you Jew” who isn’t about to be revictimized by an apologist for white privilege

(An uncomfortable pause. JAMAL again checks his watch.)

REBECCA

Do you tap dance Bojangles?

JAMAL

Bojangles was a white man who stole the personage of a black man. I will just call your case. Plead however you like. But I will read the facts into the record and let the Court decide what you deserve.

REBECCA

I am definitely blacker than you. I’m the only one here with the balls to stand up for the black man. Not you. You’re paid to put them in jail. How do you live with yourself?

JAMAL

You blacker than me?

(REBECCA again nods her head, slowly and with pride.)

JAMAL

My parent was a single mother because my father was in prison. I went to college on a football scholarship because I can run faster than any white boy. I won a scholarship to law school …

REBECCA

On affirmative action.

JAMAL

On academic excellence. But (changing the tone of his voice to exaggerated black ghetto speech pattern) since you blacker than me, you use to jail.

REBECCA

Your just another black man co-opted by the white male power structure to make sure black lives don’t matter. I actually feel sorry for you at some level.

OFFSTAGE

All rise.

(Judge Ricardo Zwoboda enters the courtroom from the center door and quickly takes a seat at the judge’s bench, moves some papers into piles and looks out into the courtroom.)

RICARDO

Good afternoon. Call the next case counsel.

JAMAL

The State calls State v. Rebecca Roth. One count of violation of probation for a Rule 4 violation — re-arrest. The re-arrest occurred in Washington, D.C. on June 1, 2020.

RICARDO

Ma’am please state your full name and date of birth.

REBECCA

Rebecca Roth, June 1, 1980.

RICARDO

You were arrested on your birthday?

REBECCA

I was.

RICARDO

(flippantly)

Other than that, Ms. Roth, how was your birthday?

REBECCA

Worst birthday ever. I took the subway to the Black Lives Matter march. (With increased emphasis) Because they matter to me, and they should matter to any human being who is sick of white pigs killing African Americans and one of the whiter black pigs locked me up. You want to know what is really ironic. I’m Jewish. For my birthday my mother gave me a trip to Poland as soon as Covid is over so that I can see Auschwitz and ‘never forget,’ like I need to travel any further than any police station to see what Nazi’s look like.

RICARDO

Ms. Roth, I am also Jewish, which has nothing to do with this proceeding, but I will tell you that this Court is more than a little offended with your comparison of American police officers and the Nazis who ran Auschwitz, and I respectfully request that you conduct yourself in my courtroom with respect for all others, including police officers. (Pause) Let’s move on with the hearing. Do you read and write the English language?

REBECCA

I have a Ph.D. in Feminist Studies from the University of Minnesota. So, yes.

RICARDO

Are you under the influence of any alcohol, drug, or substance which causes you not to understand these proceedings

REBECCA

To paraphrase Judge now Justice Kavanagh, are you?

RICARDO

Ma’am, you lost me.

REBECCA

If I was drunk or high, this might make sense. But no sober person can possibly understand why I am being prosecuted for exercising my right of free speech and self-defense.

RICARDO

Do you have a lawyer?

REBECCA

No, I don’t have a lawyer. I don’t need a lawyer. I don’t want a lawyer. I want to get this over with and get on with my life.

RICARDO

Ma’am how do you plead?

REBECCA

Not guilty with an explanation. (Dramatically) I just want to be done with this.

RICARDO

State, are you asking for incarceration?

JAMAL

No, Your Honor.

RICARDO

Ma’am, I am going to treat this as a not guilty, statement of fact. And I promise to listen to your explanation. State…

JAMAL

Had this violation of probation gone to trial, the State would have proven that on or about January 17, 2019, the Defendant, identified as Rebecca Roth, the woman at defense table wearing a black sweater, pled no contest to assaulting a police officer in Baltimore City, Maryland during a psychiatric evaluation at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was sentenced to one year, suspended. You placed Ms. Roth on two years of unsupervised probation but required her to continue psychiatric counseling and take all prescribed medications. During the probation period, specifically on June 1, 2020, Ms. Roth was arrested and charged with simple assault in the District of Columbia when she spat on the shield of a Metropolitan Police Officer on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. She was convicted of a negotiated / reduced offense of unlawful protest. State’s case.

RICARDO

Ms. Roth, do you have any objections, corrections, or additions?

REBECCA

Yes I do. First, I continue to protest my conviction for assaulting that pig at Johns Hopkins.

RICARDO

Ms. Roth, let me stop you right there. That case is over, and the appeal period has long run. The only reason that the prosecutor, Mr. Jefferson, mentioned it, is because you promised to obey all laws for two years. That is the only reason it was brought up

REBECCA

And I did obey all laws.

RICARDO

Let’s focus on that then. Why are you saying that you obeyed all laws when you have been convicted of unlawful protest.

REBECCA

Because there is nothing unlawful about protesting. It is my right under the United States Constitution, first amendment. Freedom of speech. And when the pigs kill Breonna Taylor, then George Floyd, I had the absolute right to tell those racist pigs and their neo-Nazi Uncle Tom House Negro cousins, that we are not going to stand by and let them keep killing…

RICARDO

You lost me, I thought the officers responsible in the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were white.

REBECCA

Yes they were white. But the white privilege power structure also co-opts so-called black men to be there Uncle Toms, like the one who was pushing me back near the White House. The DC pig was a House Negro to that sexist P O S Trump.

RICARDO

State, does your report list the race of the victim officer in this case?

(Simultaneously, the question is answered by JAMAL and REBECCA)

JAMAL

African-American

REBECCA

Oreo

RICARDO

Ma’am you are way out of line. I did not ask your opinion of the victim’s race?

REBECCA

I am not a madam or a ma’am. That word is a poststructuralism denotation of the privileged white male to label me in order to control me. Next you will tell me to “act like a lady.”

RICARDO

Ms. Roth, I am not a white male. I am Latino male, and I am a Jewish male, so I am a double minority, and I am not part of any white male privilege. In fact, as I look around this room, the only white person here is you Ms. Roth. And as I understand the facts of this case, you spat upon an African American police officer.

REBECCA

You — a double minority? I am a Jewish woman protesting for Black Lives Matter. All I see around here is a power structure originally built by African slave labor and a white privilege prison system that exists to demonize black men, separate them from education, employment, fatherhood and human dignity by caging them in conditions worse than slavery and when that isn’t enough just shooting them to death or choking them to death. (Bordering on hysterical.) I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Say his name: George Floyd. Say her name: Breonna Taylor.

RICARDO

Ms. Roth, is there anything else?

REBECCA

Of course there is, if you are a Jewish man, man-up and act like a real Jew. Jews stand with the oppressed against the Nazi pigs anywhere and everywhere. Don’t ask me if there is anything else. Do your job as a Jewish man

RICARDO

Ms. Roth, the State has graciously asked for no jail, in spite of the fact that you have now assaulted two police officers

REBECCA

Unlawful protest.

RICARDO

I understand your point, but you were able to plea bargain a simple assault to unlawful protest, perhaps because the officer was wearing a mask. I don’t know. But spitting on a person is not speech. I sentence you to one year in jail suspend all but 90 days. You have the right to request a new trial in 10 days, to file an appeal in 30 days, and ask for a modification of sentence for 90 days.

(Stillness in the court)

(Jamal points to the DOC door)

JAMAL

Right thru there ma’am, I mean Ms. Roth.

(Roth defiantly walks thru the door.)

RICARDO

Do you think that woman has mental problems? Maybe I should have her evaluated.

JAMAL

I don’t know but she assaulted a cop last time she was evaluated.

RICARDO

True dat. When I saw this case, I thought I’d give her a lecture and maybe ask her to do some community service or something. Not jail.

JAMAL

I’m sure. I actually warned her to drop the pig reference.

RICARDO

What’d she say?

JAMAL

You know, all the House Negro, Uncle Tom, Bojangles stuff.

RICARDO

Then fuck her. I’m glad I gave her ninety days. She deserves it just for calling you names.

JAMAL

Not to come off like I’m a legal scholar, but I thought that was protected first amendment speech. That basically she can call me anything she wants off the record.

(Judge standing and leaving)

RICARDO

Not in my courtroom. The Constitution — read the fine print. Void where prohibited by law.

THE END.