“Pockets of Resistance”
“As children we are taught that we have a right to defend ourselves. As media consumers, we applaud characters who fight back against systems and people that oppress them. As a nation, we enter into violent conflict whether the threats are actual or merely perceived. And yet, take one look at our justice system and it quickly becomes clear: Self-defense is a justification that seems only to work if you’re wealthy, white, male or a guest star onThe Good Wife.
Just such a glaring double standard takes center stage in blair dorosh-walther’s new documentary, Out in the Night, which chronicles the past eight years in the lives of the New Jersey 4 — Venice Brown, Terrain Dandridge, Renata Hill and Patreese Johnson. They’re a group of queer African American women who, after an altercation with a street harasser, found themselves steamrolled by the justice system and dehumanized by the media, the newest casualties in a long-running history of casting lesbians in the role of violent man-haters, regardless of the truth…
Black, female, lesbian, working-class: “It was the perfect storm of their multiple identities,” says dorosh-walther. “The prosecutor and judge and police just didn’t believe the women.” Nor did the media: “The first article that really hit me was The New York Times’ article [“Man Is Stabbed in Attack After Admiring a Stranger”]…This isn’t a tabloid paper. It’s a national paper. It’s one of the more reputable papers. Why was he an admirer? What man is an admirer to a woman that he doesn’t know on the street at 2 a.m.?””
