Category Archives: displacement and gentrification
Why AIDS Activists Occupy Wall Street — and How to Get Involved!
In 2008, as the stock market crashed and Congress prepared to give trillions of tax dollars to the banks, I desperately emailed all my AIDS activist friends: “We’ve got to stop this bailout! There will be no money for Obama … Continue reading
US Social Forum workshops not to be missed!
1p – 5:30p: HIV/AIDS and Social Justice – Cobo W2-61 – Fighting for the rights of people in prison, living on the streets, or in schools. Organizing against gentrification, poverty, and government neglect. Challenging racism, homophobia, and discrimination of all sorts. Confronting the forces of corporatization, globalization, and greed. AIDS activists are at the center of each of these battles, because we have long recognized that the AIDS epidemic is fueled by each of these forms of oppression. Good activists link local, national, and global struggles. They bring a broad range of voices to confront those with power. They work to amplify silenced voices within their own groups and throughout the world. And they win. We’ve won local victories like on-demand housing for everyone living with AIDS in NYC, and global victories like forcing drug companies and governments to accept generic drug competition. We are led by people living with HIV and have always brought the voices of those infected directly to those in power, amplified but not drowned out by the voices of allies. Come help us connect the dots between AIDS and oppressions faced by people on a daily basis, and learn what the successes and challenges of the AIDS movement can teach us all. Continue reading
Filed under Africa, African Americans, Alternatives to 501c3, arts and culture, California, disaster capitalism, displacement and gentrification, Drug users' rights, economic justice, gay and bisexual men, gender, Haiti, harm reduction, housing, immigration/migration, imperialism/colonialism, Latina/o communities in the United States, New Orleans, New York City, police repression, prison, revolutionary strategies, sex workers' rights, sexual violence, Southern United States, trans and gender non-conforming, transformative justice, treatment access, women
Solidarity Project 9 – HIV and Indigenous Peoples: In the Aftermath of Trauma
The Solidarity Project, published online by the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP) from November 2006 to November 2008, is available in pdf format on CHAMP’s website. Issues 8 and 9 can also be viewed on the CHAMP site. Download Issue … Continue reading
HIV and Indigenous Peoples: In the Aftermath of Trauma
“When conducting research among Native Americans, dispossession must be considered as the underlying cause of the many existing health disparities, including those that result in HIV/AIDS,” according to a 2007 research brief by John Lowe for the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care called “The Need for Historically Grounded HIV/AIDS Prevention Research Among Native Americans.” Lowe continues: “The policies enacted by the United States government that enforced the dispossession of Native American Indian lands and termination or assimilation of Native American culture have resulted in a trauma of catastrophic proportions with destructive outcomes. Aside from disease, these include disenfranchisement; extermination of tradition, language, and land rights; broken treaties; sterilization of women; placement of children in Indian boarding schools; and other strategies of colonization.” Continue reading
Cultural Healing: Native American Activists Say Boarding School Abuses Harmed the Health of Generations
“Many of the problems of alcoholism and drug abuse now prevalent in Indian country can be traced back to the physical, emotional and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of our keepers in the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] and mission boarding schools,” Lakota journalist and boarding school survivor Tim Giago wrote in the Huffington Post. Government-sponsored boarding schools have created a legacy of trauma among Native American peoples in the United States. The Boarding School Healing Project documents the abuse and demonstrates how it has led to high rates of childhood sexual abuse, family violence, violence against women, alcoholism, and drug use in Native communities. In addition to the homophobia the schools enforced in children from cultures traditionally welcoming of gay and gender-nonconforming people, most of these symptoms of trauma are the same factors that make Native communities vulnerable to HIV. A look at the brutal history of these boarding schools can teach us a lot about the ways that social injustice fuels the epidemic – and how to fight back. Continue reading
Land and Freedom: Indigenous Communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, Fight HIV and Repression
The United States has twice the HIV prevalence of Mexico, so it isn’t surprising that the need to cross the border for work has increased Mexican communities’ vulnerability to HIV. But the reasons for HIV’s increase in some places in Mexico – indigenous, rural communities far from the border – may not be so obvious. “The state of Oaxaca has the highest HIV rate in Southeastern Mexico,” Oaxacan queer activist Leonardo Tlahui says. “One of the primary factors is immigration. The Mixteco people [one of Oaxaca's largest indigenous groups] have a high population of immigrants to the United States.” He explains that migrating to a country with double the HIV rate makes immigrants more vulnerable to HIV, and that increased vulnerability is then shared with their home communities since most of the immigrants return home to Oaxaca. Continue reading
Filed under arts and culture, displacement and gentrification, economic justice, gay and bisexual men, gender, immigration/migration, imperialism/colonialism, Latina/o communities in the United States, Mexico, Native Americans/Indigenous peoples, police repression, revolutionary strategies, Solidarity Project, trans and gender non-conforming, treatment access, women
TAKE ACTION – What You Can Do
Research local archives and government and church records for evidence of crimes in Native American boarding schools. If your church or government is responsible for abuses and/or deaths of Native children, take steps to hold it accountable. This could start just by talking with others in your community about it. Then, for example, you could work within your church organization to help (and pressure) it to gather information, release it publicly, and reach out to Native groups to offer restitution. Continue reading
RESOURCES
Bilingual Links:
What are American Indian/Alaskan Natives’ (AI/AN) HIV prevention needs? (2002, factsheet)
English: caps.ucsf.edu/pubs/FS/nativeamerican.php
Español: caps.ucsf.edu/espanol/hojas/pdf/IN-NAFS.pdf
This Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) factsheet from UCSF links the history of colonization, outlawing Native languages and spiritual practices, and centuries of forced relocation with a disproportionate burden of HIV risk factors.
El Enemigo Común (The Common Enemy)
elenemigocomun.net (website)
News and videos from social movements and media collectives in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Risk Across Borders: Sexual Contexts and HIV Prevention Challenges among Mexican Gay and Bisexual Immigrant Men (August 2008, monograph)
These findings and recommendations from a new CAPS study are an easy-to-read resource for immigrants, gay men, HIV educators, activists, policy makers, and scholars. Continue reading
Solidarity Workshop – HIV Prevention Toolkit for Native Communities: Historical and Socioeconomic Health Risks
Addressing HIV/AIDS isn’t an easy task in itself. Addressing HIV/AIDS among Native populations is even more difficult. It involves the health and psychosocial effects of many other issues: a traumatic history, homophobia and discrimination, poor communication, poverty, and substance abuse. In order to address HIV/AIDS among Native populations, it is essential to understand and respond to these historical and social barriers.
Impacts of Contact and Colonization
Native communities still experience trauma as a result of colonization. Native people suffer from depression, marginalization, alienation, identity confusion, substance abuse, violence, and suicide. All of these traumas play a role in the transmission of HIV/AIDS among Native people. Continue reading
Housing As HIV Prevention
“One of the single biggest ways to prevent HIV by reducing risk behavior is to provide stability in housing,” says Charles King, president and CEO of Housing Works. “As long as you have chronic homelessness, people will be involved in drug activity that’s related to their homelessness and sex trade that’s related to their homelessness. Whether you’re HIV positive or negative, homelessness increases the risk of HIV transmission. The more people are forced to engage in survival activities, the greater the risk.” Continue reading
