Dios mío
Dr. Gerardo Rodríguez-Galarza prays in protest
Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo…
I sit across from the police station in downtown Green Bay, praying in Spanish with my pink rosary, in protest against city curfew.
I pray against police brutality.
I pray against the deaths of George Floyd and Jonathon Tubby, among many others. Tubby was an Oneida member of the Bear Clan; in 2018, he was shot multiple times by police officer Erik O’Brien while handcuffed in the sally port of the county jail.
I pray this June evening, when curfew begins, remembering all the Black men, women, children, and Latin American migrants who have been marginalized, abused, and even murdered by state-sanctioned violence.
I pray, not knowing what to expect as my fingers move from bead to bead.
…hallowed be your name, your kingdom come...
Suddenly, an unmarked van pulls up next to me, and four police officers jump out.
They question my presence. They tell me I have to leave on account of the curfew.
I say that the curfew is an unjust law.
One of the officers says that it’s his duty to enforce all laws.
This isn’t a debate I’m going to win, despite the precautions I deliberately took against being labelled a threat: I came alone; I wore a pink shirt (albeit with black-and-white Puerto Rico flag, fist imprinted at the center); I carried a pink rosary; and I removed my mask so that my face could be fully visible.
The officer repeats that I need to leave. None of them are wearing face masks.
For the first time in my life, I am handcuffed. I continue praying the rosary in English. The prayer allows my mind to partially disconnect from the event while supplying me with the courage to remain firm and physically invested.
Many demands weighed on me—co-parenting, academic responsibilities, potential exposure to COVID-19—when I first made my decision to sit in protest and prayer. I kissed my spouse and children—six and ten years old—not knowing what the evening would bring, afraid that we might have to repeat such protests in years to come, under even worse circumstances, if we do not stand up now.
For now, the pandemic continues to plague our nation, with police brutality occurring daily, especially targeting Black and Brown communities. Throughout my arrest, it does not occur to me to ask an officer to put the face mask on me.
For now, I lay face-down on the grass, arms stretched apart, loudly praying the “Our Father” in English. Hoping to disassociate from the physical humiliation I am about to experience, I divert my eyes from the numerous police around me to the ground.
…your will be done en la tierra como en el cielo.
I am a U.S. citizen.
I teach at an institution of higher education.
But my credentials, skills, and accomplishments matter little in a system that questions my self-worth and right to exist.
A few days earlier, local activist Dajahnae Williams pointed out to the city council that the curfew targeted black citizens wishing to express their First Amendment rights. The members muted her even as concerns circulated about white citizens enjoying the bar life of Green Bay.
Curfews, in fact, have a long history as a tool of oppression against black and brown communities across the nation. Local, state and national governments have implemented curfews at times when leaders sought to protect the property and wealth of white citizens. Now deployed to quell legitimate dissent, curfews have disproportionately targeted black and brown protesters. The financial costs of dissent are highly burdensome to people of few means. Arrests and fines set for peaceful protests might seem minor to many, but they hurt impoverished citizens and humiliate all citizens wishing to express their constitutional rights to assembly and free speech. Many in my community are committed to challenging the injustice that arises from such implementation of curfews.
I lament all the ways systems and structures in the United States continue to perpetrate violence against black and brown lives. And I confess that I, too, have been complicit at times as one among the privileged who has benefited from higher education.
I should not be where I am.
My parents had limited schooling. My mother gave birth to me when she was 15 years old. I grew up in a small countryside barrio in Puerto Rico, and my language development was hampered by moves back and forth from my colonized island to the U.S. mainland. One of my most powerful life memories is praying the rosary at night on La Isla del Encanto con mi abuela on All Souls Day: With candles lit around the living room, we remembered all those who had departed before us.
Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día…
Two officers—one white, the other brown—lift me from the ground. They grab me by the arms to escort me across the street to the police station. When asked if I want the rosary in my hand, I tell them to place it in my pocket so that it won’t be mistaken for a weapon. Although an officer adjusts my glasses when they slip, I have to ask for constant direction as both officers pull on me. I do not want any action on my part to be considered physical resistance.
The officers have to seek further instructions on what to do with me and wait for their orders from the dispatch officer. I am placed in the back of a patrol SUV without ever entering the police station.
I continue to pray the rosary in English and in Spanish. Although I prefer to say my prayers in Spanish, I do not wish to provoke the officers. Yet, while in custody in the back of a police car, praying in Spanish does feel like a small act of resistance.
During the drive, I pause my prayers several times as I start to tear up, knowing how many other black and brown bodies in my city and across the nation have been traumatized by those supposedly sworn to serve and protect us. How only one word or gesture mal interpretado separates me from my black and brown sisters and brothers. How the odds are highly likely that I’m sitting in the same seat where another has been mistreated or abused by law enforcement officials.
The threat feels real as the handcuffs against the hard back of the car seat cut into my wrists. I see that the patrol vehicle is recording me in night-vision mode. Images of Jonathon Tubby, shifting in his seat and scrambling to move his hands to the front of his body, rush to my mind. I think about how uncomfortable it is to have my hands handcuffed behind me. I think about how reasonable Tubby’s decision was to move his handcuffed hands to his front at a moment like this. I think about how that reasonable act was ultimately used to justify the false charge that he had been armed—a devastating realization that cannot be comprehended by simply watching the video footage.
…and forgive us our trespasses…
We finally arrive at a desolate parking lot occupied by a sole police truck: a mobile processing center. The officer at the site has me stand in front of the truck to face a camera. He asks the brown officer—the driver of the police vehicle—to hold up whatever numbers are written on a sheet of paper. This officer then places me back in the patrol car.
In the midst of the silence, I ask the white officer in the passenger seat to share his name. He stays quiet and shifts his head. I say that I will be praying for him and his family.
From the back of the patrol car, I witness the way the white officer interacts with his brown partner—condescending and dismissive. Perhaps the white officer is frustrated with having to enforce curfew. As it appeared, they were unsure about my specific citation, but the white officer reported that I had violated a state ordinance. He seems exasperated as I explain that I should have been accused of violating the city ordinance extension imposed by the city council only two days before.
The white officer remains quiet, chooses not to acknowledge me: I am erased.
Devonne Mayweather leads a Sunday-morning prayer at the George Floyd Memorial in Minneapolis, MN, 31 May 2020. Photo: Lorie Shaull
After they print out the $313 citation, the brown officer takes me out of the vehicle again to remove the handcuffs.
I ask him his name.
He holds up the processing number for this detainee: Rodríguez.
The officer is mi hermano. We share a heritage—he is also mi tocayo.
What must it feel like to carry a badge and know that you are processing another brown brother, connected by a surname, for a non-violent protest? Did he understand me as I prayed in Spanish? Was the white officer conscious that he was the minority in that car ride, and did that fact disturb or unsettle him at all?
The brown officer asks his white colleague whether they should return me to the site of the arrest or leave me at the remote location where I was processed.
They will leave me here, in the parking lot, says the white officer.
Later, I will learn that officers have discretionary power to release detainees at sites of their choice as long as these locations “do not endanger the individual.”
…as we forgive those who trespass against us.
After my handcuffs are removed, I ask about my location: I am in the boat-launch area parking lot at Bay Beach.
Here I am, in Bay Beach, the furthest northern point of the city—the actual Green Bay—where the mouth of the Fox River merges into Lake Michigan. I have never been at this location, where I now stand in the dark.
The officers tell me to go straight ahead and turn left at the street.
And lead us not into temptation…
Tonight, might things have turned out differently had I exercised my privilege? Or had my life story not bounced between a colonized island and the Mainland? Or had Spanish not been my first tongue? Or had I not been considered brown in the U.S.A.? I can no longer stand by silently as too many of my white—and even some of my Latinx—peers have done in our city. Protest is local. There is no right way to protest the silencing and murder of our people.
Tonight, because of my prayerful resistance, I have experienced the sinfulness of our society in vivid psychological, emotional, and physical ways that are much more visceral than the daily microaggressions and racism I endure, even in my life of moderate privilege.
Tonight, the brokenness that permeates our lives, neighborhoods, and world have deepened further into the marrow of my bones and become personal in new ways.
…mas líbranos del mal.
“Deliver us from evil” is a cry for justice in the midst of sustained indifference, cruel oppression, and state-sanctioned violence against black and brown bodies in our society. We have witnessed these behaviors consistently in this nation through colonization, enslavement, lynchings, Jim Crow, prison-industrial complex, war on drugs, war on terror, war on migrants, and militarized law enforcement.
“Deliver us from evil” is my prayer in solidarity with youth who continue to rise up and bravely lead #BlackLivesMatter; with First Nations communities protesting pipelines that desecrate their lands; with undocumented migrants; with LGBTQI+ rights advocates; with Darnella Frazier, who filmed the arrest of George Floyd, even after being asked by police to stop; and with the bystanders who yelled for police officers to desist from their deadly restraint of George Floyd.
“I can’t breathe” is a plea that should not need to be uttered, but that once made, demands immediate response.
May these prayers strengthen our will to persevere en la lucha for an anti-racist, just world.
Amen.
It is 10:20 p.m.
Here I am, in Bay Beach, abandoned at a remote and isolated parking lot, expected to make my way back on foot through the dark city to my home or vehicle.
Here I am, a brown, Spanish-speaking Boricua, wondering, “Will I be re-arrested for violating curfew at this late hour?”
Here I am, Dios mío, wearing a face mask and walking straight ahead towards home.
Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros, pecadores…
