Category Archives: imperialism/colonialism
Gone ’til November? Wyclef Jean and the Haitian elections
I’m a huge fan of Wyclef Jean’s music, from 1996′s height of Fugees glory, The Score — an album played nonstop at every activist dance party that year — to his solo efforts, which never fail to lift my spirit. I was intrigued to hear that Wyclef was running for president of Haiti, one of the first places in the world to be hit hard by HIV in the ’80s. So was the AIDS activist group Housing Works, which does some organizing there and asked on August 2nd, Would President Wyclef Jean Make HIV/AIDS a Priority? Unfortunately, my research on Wyclef’s politics sang me a tune that was not music to my ears. It turns out Wyclef Jean supports the policies that keep 90% of the population desperately poor and without the resources to recover from famine, tropical storms’ destruction, and HIV/AIDS. Continue reading
Follow the Activist Media from the Global AIDS Conference in Vienna!
Global AIDS activists will be blogging from AIDS2010 at Take a Number (in Vienna!), a grassroots activist media site that is being organized by Health GAP.
Be sure to check it throughout the week! The conference only happens every 2 years, and activists fiercely make their presence known while the corporate media is paying attention to AIDS and world public health leaders are assembled. Activists are angry that wealthy nations are using the financial crisis as an excuse to renege on their commitments to make sure everyone in the world who needs AIDS treatment has access to it. Here are some photos from day one of the conference by Kaytee Riek: Continue reading
Filed under Africa, economic justice, Europe, imperialism/colonialism, treatment access
ADAP Crisis: More people on waiting lists for HIV meds than ever before
“We die — you make money!” That’s what we shouted at the stock exchange in 1997, during ACT UP New York’s 10th anniversary Wall Street action. How is Wall Street doing today? It’s hard to tell. The Campaign for America’s Future reported in April that “multiple federal agencies have disbursed $4.6 trillion dollars in supporting the financial sector since the meltdown in 2007-2008…. This is an astonishing 32% of our GDP (2008) 130% of the federal budget (FY 2009).”
OK, so how are people living with HIV and AIDS doing? Well, on July 6, the Bilerico Project noted that more than 2,090 individuals in 12 states are now on waiting lists for lifesaving medications through the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP). Since its founding more than ten years ago, ADAP has always been in crisis. But this is the longest the waiting list has ever been. Continue reading
Highlights from the US Social Forum: LA COIL on Intersectionality, Horizontalism and Prefigurative Politics
My favorite session at the U.S. Social Forum was organized by LA COIL (Communities Organizing Liberation), a collective of revolutionaries who work with the teachers’ union, the Garment Workers’ Center, and in hospitals in Los Angeles. They asked us to imagine in detail the world we want to live in, starting with what we want our schools to look like (windows on every floor! peer evaluation! all students, faculty, staff and community members involved in decisions about budget, curriculum, etc!) and then exploring how we can build accountability and support structures in our neighborhoods to replace police and prisons. These folks are for real. 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
Che Gossett on AIDS activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya’s legacy and the intersections between all movements for liberation
“For many low income, no-income and houseless, queer and trans people of color, the distance between prisons and pride parades is not a chasm but instead, overlapping terrain.” Continue reading
Filed under African Americans, criminalization of HIV, economic justice, gay and bisexual men, harm reduction, housing, imperialism/colonialism, New York City, people with AIDS in leadership, Philadelphia, police repression, prison, revolutionary strategies, Southern United States, stigma, trans and gender non-conforming, Uncategorized, war, 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
