{"id":5438,"date":"2021-06-18T15:23:15","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T15:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=5438"},"modified":"2023-03-27T15:52:33","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T15:52:33","slug":"for-pride-month-deberry-discusses-life-as-a-queer-woman-justice-for-all-and-her-inspiration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2021\/06\/18\/for-pride-month-deberry-discusses-life-as-a-queer-woman-justice-for-all-and-her-inspiration\/","title":{"rendered":"For Pride Month, Deberry discusses life as a queer woman, justice for all and her inspiration"},"content":{"rendered":"
On the eighth floor of the Durham courthouse, a beige tower that is home to the county\u2019s criminal justice system, you will find the office of District Attorney Satana Deberry. With colorful pillows and local art on every wall, her office seems out of place in the drab building. But Deberry, a black queer woman, hasn\u2019t been a typical prosecutor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She oversees a system that often entangles people that look just like her. But she is the one running it \u2013 and trying to change it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Studies<\/span><\/a> have found that LGBTQ people, like people of color, are disproportionately harmed by our justice system. Deberry, elected in 2018 on a mandate of criminal justice reform, has brought a unique understanding of the LGBTQ community to the DA\u2019s office.<\/span><\/p>\n In an interview for Pride Month, she spoke with The 9th Street Journal about her life as a queer woman and her feelings about representation and justice.<\/span><\/p>\n We all have idols that shape us. In a framed photo tucked in the corner of her office, Deberry memorializes hers: Barbara Jordan.<\/span><\/p>\n Jordan, a \u201ctowering figure\u201d in the 1970s, was one of the <\/span>first black women <\/span><\/a>to serve in the Texas State Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. She, like Deberry, was unafraid to challenge the status quo.<\/span><\/p>\n During <\/span>President Richard Nixon\u2019s impeachment hearing<\/span><\/a>, Jordan famously declared: \u201cIf the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th-century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th-century paper shredder.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n While she never publicly revealed her sexuality, Jordan <\/span>lived with a partner for 20 years<\/span><\/a> until she died in 1996.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to be Barbara Jordan,\u201d said Deberry. \u201cBarbara Jordan was the first black woman that I saw that I <\/span>knew<\/span><\/i>.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With Barbara Jordan in mind, young Deberry chased excellence in school. She decided good grades would be her path out of Hamlet, N.C. \u2013 a town of 6,000 between Charlotte and Fayetteville. It worked. Her determination and focus on academics carried her all the way to Princeton and through law school at Duke University. To this day, she still doesn\u2019t \u201csee light blue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She was always focused on her studies, so it wasn\u2019t until her mid to late 20s, after graduating from law school, that Deberry began to understand her own sexuality. \u201cIt started to occur to me that I had to build a life. And how was I going to build that life?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She realized there was only one option. \u201cIt was never a case that I wasn’t going to be out. Because that’s just not who I am,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n The core values of openness and transparency that she brings to her office stem from her own disposition. \u201cI’m always trying to be my best self. And so, I don’t really think of being myself as being brave. I mean, that’s what we’re all doing.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When she came out, her parents were not surprised. \u201cWe already knew that,\u201d they told her matter-of-factly, \u201cso you should probably tell us something new.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Her parents were supportive, but for her mother, queer life was associated with tragedy. Deberry\u2019s aunt, who today would likely identify as trans, lived a dangerous life and was ultimately killed. \u201cI think for my parents, especially for my mother, that was the only kind of life you could have as a queer person . . . on the edges of society.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Deberry worked for a few years as a criminal lawyer before taking jobs at various non-profit groups like Self-Help and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Then from 2013 to 2018, she served as the head of N.C. Housing Coalition \u2013 all while raising three daughters as a single mother.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 2018, she was elected the county\u2019s chief prosecutor by <\/span>promising bold reform<\/span><\/a>. Rejecting the hard-line approach of many district attorneys, she vowed to put less emphasis on non-violent crime and said she would address racial bias in the system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Black women account for a tiny share of the nation\u2019s DAs. In 2014, <\/span>79%\u00a0 percent<\/span><\/a> of elected prosecutors were white men, and only <\/span>1% <\/span><\/a>were women of color.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Talking to Deberry, who sports hoop earrings and blue Adidas tennis shoes, it becomes clear that she has not made it to the eighth floor in <\/span>spite<\/span><\/i> of her intersecting identities, but rather because of them. \u201cBecause I come at this from a cultural position of traditionally being powerless, I feel like I understand what’s at stake in a different way,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n DAs<\/span><\/a> wield tremendous power in deciding which criminal cases get prosecuted. Unlike many prosecutors, her identity as a black, queer woman overlaps with many of those likely to be involved in our imbalanced criminal justice system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She says she brings her unique perspective to her work. \u201cThere are just experiences in my life, certainly as a queer person, that inform the decisions I make and the policies that we implement here.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n During her time as DA, she has limited the use of cash bail, has scaled back prosecution of school-based offenses, and has focused on prosecuting violent crimes rather than low-level drug possession charges. She says these policies work to reduce the jail population and keep vulnerable people out of the criminal justice system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She also recognizes the way the system harms LGBTQ people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to the most recent <\/span>National Inmate Survey<\/span><\/a>, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are three-times as likely to be incarcerated, and a<\/span> third of all women <\/span><\/a>in prison identify as queer. Studies show transgender people are more likely to be incarcerated at some point in their lives. This rate is even higher for LGBTQ youth, who make up <\/span>20% of the juvenile justice system<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBuilding a Life<\/b><\/h2>\n
\u2018The worst day of their lives\u2019<\/b><\/h2>\n