Photo/"Out in the Night"
It was supposed to be a fun night on the town for the seven Jersey women of color, a night in the West Village of New York City.
They enjoyed being around other gay people while visiting the historic Stonewall Inn, birthplace of our nation’s gay rights movement.
But as the documentary “Out in the Night” shows, it ended up being an evening filled with violence and enduring trauma.
As these women strolled along that summer night in 2007, they didn’t expect an older man to get up in their face and talk filthy – especially not in the birthplace of the gay rights movement.
But that’s what happened. When the man said, “I want that,” tiny Patreese Johnson thought that he simply wanted a drink of her friend’s Pepsi. Sitting by a fire hydrant, he looked a little down and out.
Patreese had seen her share of struggle. Her brother was caught up in a gang fight when she was 11, and then shot dead by police at the age of 17.
Sexual harassment a trigger for women
But when the man pointed at her and said, “I want that!” and then called her a string of filthy names, the women had enough.
Renata Hill said she had been raped by her mom’s husband when she was a child. She wasn’t about to listen to all of that.
Ultimately, the man laughed at the women, struck them, and a fight ensued. In fact, he pulled out Renata’s dreadlocks, leaving her weaves on the concrete and her scalp a bloody mess.
The women argued in court that they defended themselves. Patreese, who carried a small knife for protection at the plea of her brother Anthony, stabbed the man.
The women were found guilty of charges ranging from gang assault to attempted murder.
Black, female, gay: Marginalized and then some
Black. Female. Gay. Three demographics in this country that have been marginalized for years, all rolled into one.
“Lesbian Gang-Stab Shocker” screamed one headline. “Hated by Lez Gang” read another. “Killer Lesbians,” yet another.
But the headline that really ticked of Dorosh-Walther? “Man is Stabbed in Attack After Admiring a Stranger,” read a story on an inside page of the New York Times.
To borrow a phrase from one of my dearest departed gay friends, the headline “blew her skirt up.” It wreaked of ignorance.
It added insult to injury appearing in a newspaper of authority such as the New York Times. That’s when Dorosh-Walther knew she wanted to tell these women’s story.
As a white woman, she wanted to make sure she told it right. “You want to make sure you tell the story accurately through the lens of the person or people who experienced it,” she told me.
An interview with the subjects and creator
I spoke with Dorosh-Walther, Patreese, Renata, Venice Brown and Terrain Dandridge (the other two women who went to prison) on a conference call for about 45 minutes.
Some of the key takeaways from the film ought to be an understanding of what years of harassment and trauma can do to someone, or a group of people.
It’s also important to remember that being locked up in a penitentiary changes people. Indeed, it leaves many prisoners with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
And then what happens when a person gets out?
“When people are released from prison, they give you a bus pass to get on the bus, or the subway,” Dorosh-Walther said. “They have no support, no family, a one-way ticket…you’re going to put them on public transportation? You’re putting everybody else in jeopardy. This is a public health issue.”
Nuns take in ‘damaged goods’ ex-felon
“After going through all of this, and you’re done with your time…you’re damaged goods, and you’re being thrown back into a brand-new world,” explains Renata. “You’re thrown into a cage. You’re separated from those you love and care about. You have no support system.
“You’re paid a few cents per hour. They control you, belittle you, verbally abuse you, some physically abuse you.”
When Renata was released, she was taken to a shelter in New York City run by nuns.
“I had to stay in New York, and I’m not from New York. I never went to New York, unless it was to go to the village,” she explained. “I had no family support.”
Renata said she was extremely grateful for the transitional housing provided by the nuns. Some people don’t get any transitional support at all.
On the other hand, being black and a lesbian she felt a bit uncomfortable around nuns.
After jail, Renata focuses on getting son back
“Simple things, like going to the corner store … I couldn’t do that,” Renata said. “In some ways, I still felt stuck in the same place. I had to go to parole. I had to enlist in a drug program, even though I never did drugs. I had to (urinate) in a cup while they watched me.”
When asked how she got past feelings of anger and self-pity, Renata’s answer was simple: “What kept me going was knowing I had to get my son back.”
Renata missed several years of her young son’s life while locked up. Upon release, she learned she had lost custody of T.J., who had been put into the hands of the state of New Jersey.
“I had to look for a job, and when I looked for a job, with a felony … I never even was given a chance to explain my situation,” Renata said. “When you get out of prison, where is the help? Where is the toolbox?”
“In prison, you have to develop a certain type of thinking to survive,” Patreese said. “Everything there works different.”
Tiny, femme and poetic, Patreese served more time than any of the women, almost eight years. She looks about as threatening as a church mouse.
She said being in prison messed with her head.
Mental health medications dispensed in jail
“I said, ‘Am I going to take these meds?’ Some of these people deserve to be in a mental health hospital,” Patreese recalled of being medicated in the prison. “But as I found out, they were giving the meds to me anyway, and I didn’t know it.
“They gave them to me because I couldn’t stop crying. I just wanted to talk to somebody. Then I thought, ‘Maybe I should just take the meds just to get through day to day.’”
Almost two years after her release, she still struggled to put the pieces of her life back together. “Our mental health should be a priority when we get out. It’s really hard when you’re trying to transition back to society. When I’m lost, I’m even scared to ask for directions. There are no resources for us.”
Dorosh-Walther agreed. “This is a public health issue. Mental health is something we’ve never put enough resources into. Mental health, far down the line after release … is a lasting issue.”
Upon conviction of the women, one headline read, “Guilty Gal Gang Weepy Women” while another proclaimed, “Lesbian Wolf Pack Guilty.”
How to get past injustice? Baby steps
“When you come out (of prison), you come out with ‘institutionalized thinking,’” Patreese said. “It’s something similar to PTSD. You end up getting changed by the system.”
The fact that traumatized people get sent out the door with no support network is “absurd,” Dorosh-Walther said. “If there is nothing to transition you to live in the outside world ... or only a tiny fraction of services … how are you even supposed to get housing?”
The women said being able to tell their story via the film has helped them heal a great deal.
“It’s baby steps,” Terrain said. “There are moments it feels good, like we can celebrate. Other moments we’re still struggling.”
The film originally aired on PBS in 2017..
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