Samara Mokaya: On Wednesday February 24th the Women’s Center here at the University hosted the New Jersey Four on our campus and had a showing of the documentary that was created to show their side of the story with the title Out in the Night. The documentary shows everything that people may have seen on TV about the case in 2006, and also other things that were left out in the case and in the media circus that surrounded these women. The documentary tells the story about what happened on an august night in 2006 there were four African American lesbian identified women who went out in New York City for the night. During that time there was a man that was sitting near the curb outside of a showing theater that made a comment to Patreese who was one of the people in the group with connotations of doing something sexual to her. She responds by saying that she is gay and the man turns violent on all of them, threatening them and yelling obscene words to them. There is a scuffle that ensues and in the end of it, the women are rounded up and charged with gang assault. This is where the documentary talks about how there are portrayed in the media when news of this “gang assault” breaks out. The media starts to label them as angry lesbians who just wanted to harm a straight man, even though he was the one that began making comments to them.
This part of the documentary ties heavily into the talks that we have been having about black women in general and how they are usually never seen as the victims even when it involves black men that might be assaulting them. The notion that they were somehow supposed to receive this treatment was how the women were portrayed in the media. They were seen as angry lesbians that were out to get straight men. How wounded the public was with that statement showed how easily it was to spin the story because not only were these four black, they were also women and also identified as being gay. It was easy for the judge to make his decision when there was such media frenzy and such a labeling of these women. In the document it touched on the fact that the judge was one that always handled gang related cases, but this was not a gang. These were women that were defending themselves from physical and verbal abuse from a man that thought it was his place to “teach them a lesson”. With everything that was going on around the courtroom, it seeped into the court room and that was how Patreese who gave the man a small knife wound was sentenced to eleven years in prison.
This documentary really touched on the problems that our society has with black women, and the reaction that the state had to this incident was to send these women to prison. A place in which we have discussed produces gender and gender norms. Renata Hill at one point in the movie talks about under garments and how they are not allowed to wear anything that can be misconstrued as briefs or boxers; she got into trouble when she tried to use shorts as boxers under what she was wearing. In jail they were not allowed to be who they wanted to be, they were lumped into this assumption that all women regardless needed to be treated the same way and needed the same care. The documentary also featured the lawyers that defended these four women, and the lawyers to this day would stand behind those four women because they believed that this was a case where the justice system failed.
During the question and answer period that followed after wards in which Patreese Johnson and the documentary film maker Blair Dorosh-Walther were present there was surprising information that Blair released to the audience. How the case proceedings went left the man that pressed charges on them to now be able to sue them. After enduring everything, the man went after them and wanted to sue them for different random charges and because of how our laws work; Patreese and Renata have to uphold that lawsuit that was presented against them. So the man that pressed charges and kept them jailed away from their families will not be getting compensation. This furthers the argument that black women have no hold in our legal justice system. This country was not meant to protect them it is a place that was built on their backs and their subjugation and torture and so it is not a system that would turn around to defend them.
This documentary was something that was created to show that there was a different side to the story than what the media and what the community was saying about these women. They were angry, for the right reasons. If this was a man that was abusing white women who decided that they had enough, would the outcome have been the same? From the moment that these women were verbally abused all the way till now when they are still fighting for their value and worth in society, no one once questioned the man. Even though there was a camera that showed that there were bystanders that were trying to help the woman and not the man, he was never seen as a suspect in this case. It showed that even when there are black women that are in danger they are not allowed to defend themselves. Like Joan Little, they are not allowed to question the status quo and where they are placed in our society, their job is to stay there.
Joaquin Ramos: When examining a documentary like the New Jersey Four I think it is so important to realize how systems that are oppressive go hand in hand in continuing the criminalization of black bodies. Within the movie we learn about four lesbian women who are really good friends and how one night when they go out they are harassed by a man and are then attacked physically when they try to defend themselves. One of the women draws a knife and stabs the guy because they feel like he was about to kill one of her friends.The way that the general public received the story was through mainstream media where the language was shifted and the women were demonized as a gang of aggressive lesbians. When analyzing how the Black Lives Matter movement plays a role in this, we need to understand that the media and the justice system were interconnected in the criminalization of these four young women. When media portrays people as vicious and aggressive, as they did in this case, there needs to be a racial understanding of why are these black women depicted as being so violent, also why do they feel the need to have to mention their sexuality.
Bry Moore: On August 18, 2006, seven young African American women were assaulted by a man outside a theater in New York City. They were walking down the street, when he made a comment to one of the girls and she replied that she was gay and not interested. Taking offense, he attacked the women and they fought back. During the altercation, Patreese Johnson used a knife to injure the man so that they could get away. The entire incident lasted about four minutes, with no fatalities but a few injuries: the man’s knife wound, dreads that the man pulled from one of the women’s heads, and no doubt countless bruises. In the following months, three pleaded guilty and received six months, and four of the seven women were formally tried and convicted. Their names are Patreese Johnson, Renata Hill, Terrain Dandridge, and Venice Brown.
Vilified by the media as a “gang” of “killer lesbians” and charged with a range of 3-11 years, the women served their time but appealed their convictions multiple times. Their appellate lawyers uncovered mountains of new evidence that more or less proved they were acting in self-defense and hugely changed the context of the injuries sustained. For example, in court a picture of the very large, so-called “knife wound” was used as evidence against Patreese. However, it was later discovered that the large wound was due to a completely unrelated surgery performed in the hospital and the wound inflicted by Patreese was minuscule in comparison to the original injury she was accused of inflicting. Videos and police radio excerpts were released, all evidence seeming to exonerate the women from the crimes they were accused of. Some of their sentences were lessened, however they still had significant time in prison while the man received no punishment and actually sued the women for emotional and physical damages. This evidence and more is articulated in the documentary made about the four women, Out in the Night.
On February 26th, three of the New Jersey Four spoke on a panel at the Lylle B. Parker Women of Color Speaker Series in the EMU Ballroom, an event planned and brought to fruition by the Racial Justice Coordinator at the ASUO Women’s Center. Patreese Johnson, Venice Brown, and Renata Hill spoke on their experiences and there was even a discussion between Renata and Venice about the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement. They seemed to have differing opinions about terminology — Renata insisted that the movement as Black Lives Matter was vital because black people are systemically and institutionally exploited and brutalized, while Venice Brown seemed to be worried about alienating the people in the audience of the event. Though there was some disagreement there, the event sparked a conversation about both this specific incident and Black Lives Matter as a whole. The event was on February 26th, the anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death at the hands of George Zimmerman. This fact was remarked during the event, and helped to contextualize the valiant struggle of these three women against a system set up to disadvantage them in the broader struggle to convince an entire country and set of policies, institutions, and structures, that Black Lives Matter.
Marisa Haynes: The Out in the Night documentary paired with the intimate panel of the three of the four New Jersey Four was a powerful experience that I wish more people would have taken advantage of.
While the documentary showed scene after scene of repetitive injustices, it was solidified in my head over and over that the way those women experienced assault that night had everything to do with the fact that they were Black queer women. What if the assault consisted of a group of white women and black male perpetrator? The outcome of the entire event was deliberate, purposeful and was not an isolated incident. Women of color, black queer women specifically, are not allowed to protect their own bodies, “the system is not designed for us” (Patreese Johnson).
While the women were initially told they’d receive 25 years if they refused to plead guilty, Patreese, Renata, Venice, and Terrain showed incredible resistance in pleading not guilty, fighting their case against biased odds, and ending up incarcerated anyways. Patreese found herself asking, “Why me? Why not me? Why not you? It could be anyone.”
The call for Black Lives Matter came up during the panel which prompted a unexpected debate between two of the women, Venice claiming that “All Lives Matter” while Renata made a powerful, necessary stand that in this moment we need to central