Out In The Night

Seven African-American lesbians were pilloried for fighting back when sexually harassed in Manhattan's West Village in 2006, as well as being sensationalized in the media with pejorative monikers like the "seething Sapphic septet." Blair Dorosh-Walter's documentary "Out in the Night" chronicles the miscarriage of justice during the trial and sentencing of the young friends from Newark, New Jersey.

The families of the "New Jersey 4" accepted their sexuality, but the group was on guard in their impoverished, gang-infested 'hood, where tenth grader Sakia Gunn had been stabbed to death for being a lesbian.

Patreese Johnson's brother was shot and killed by a police officer when she was eleven, so early on she learned not to trust the cops and never to call 9-1-1. Her older brother Anthony encouraged her to carry a knife for protection when he wasn't with her, and she used a small knife against Dwayne Buckle when he harassed, hit and pulled dreadlocks off her friends at 1:40 in the morning in front of an IFC movie theater.

Police dispatch calls indicated that Buckle's injuries weren't life threatening, and the girls were identified as NOT being gang members, yet that information never reached the courtroom. The IFC theater's five security cameras also showed several men stepping in to hit Buckle during the melee. Four of the women received heightened gang-related and felony (rather than misdemeanor) charges, and five- to eleven-year sentences plus probation (three of the women pled guilty to get released).

At age nine, Renata Hill was raped by her mother's boyfriend, so she felt unsafe when Buckle said "I'll fuck you straight," and went back to mollify her tormentor (Hill's rapist received five years in jail; Hill received eight).

The prosecutor and judge declined to be interviewed for this documentary, so their transcripts are animated (the film's subject matter is crucial, yet the presentation is a bit clunky, with some fuzzy audio, abrupt transitions and a typo).

Advocates for the defendants noted that Buckle's hate speech was never characterized as what it was: Gay bashing. During sentencing, the judge told the women that they should learn the nursery rhyme "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."

The four women were incarcerated in Albion, upstate New York, 48 miles from the Canadian border. Hill was separated from her young son TJ, and missed being able to dress her identity. "I miss wearing boxers," she said. "These panties are killing me."

During her prison sentence, Johnson's brother Anthony was shot and killed in front of their house, but she wasn't allowed to attend his funeral.

The four are now free, yet activists like Angela Davis still want to call attention to disenfranchised African-American youth, like Trayvon Martin, and to this quartet of lesbians, who are unlikely to get a fair shake in the U.S. justice system, because of their gender, the color of their skin, and whom they love.

For information on screenings, visit www.outinthenight.com