Photoset

Reblogged from WYSIWYG

What if we stigmatized other diseases like we stigmatize HIV?

 

Reblogged from come correct

Putting an end to AIDS is not that simple. Putting an end to discrimination should be.

One thing about Irene really leaves a bad taste in my mouth

I know a lot of places are still under a bit of water, and a lot of people are still without electricity, but I think the Northeast tried to prepare for this as best we could. Buildings were sandbagged and boarded up, people raided grocery/convenience stores for all the emergency supplies imaginable, my local Home Depot sold out of backup generators even though they were going at $900 a pop, and mayors/governors everywhere told people to GET THE FUCK OUT. I mean, they evacuated the parts of New York City that were most likely to be seriously damaged--that has NEVER happened before.

But they missed a spot. No evacuation was planned for the prisoners on Riker's Island. Every other barrier island was evacuated, as well as some low-lying inland communities, but the 12,000+ prisoners--most of whom are low-level offenders, not hardened criminals--who are trapped in cells on an island composed primarily of landfill were not granted the right to a fair chance of surviving the storm (had it been as bad as predicted). Though committing an offense temporarily takes away one's right to liberty, it doesn't mean we can disregard these people's right to LIFE. Even the UN says that prisoners cannot be ignored in times of emergency like this. It disgusts me to see these people entirely neglected--our prison system is supposed to be a place to rehabilitate people, not to abandon them in cages while we protect ourselves. Prisoners are wards of the state, and the state has an obligation to protect them as it protects all its citizens. Their families should sue for like, the endangerment of their welfare or something. And this just goes to show how our prison system just doesn't give a damn about prisoners anymore. Fucking animal shelters looked for people to take the cats and dogs in to protect them from the storm, but these human beings weren't offered that same decency. You can't mandatory evacuate people selectively, that a) defeats the purpose and b) constitutes abuse--there's no other way to cut it. It makes me sick. 

I Co-Sign this with the biggest pen I can find:

"I am past the point where I have any patience for people telling me how I should feel about how black women are presented in the media. Especially people who have never walked a moment, much less a mile in the shoes of black women in America. And before someone decides to break out the face paint & do a documentary? Let me tell you right now that a day or a week or even a month in makeup won’t touch what it’s like to hear from birth that you are worth less than every body else because of you hair, your skin, your culture, your history, & your gender. You know, all those things that make you human? Yeah, the message we get is that we’re not really human. We’re beasts, we’re Mammy, we’re bedwarmers, we’re everything under the Sun but people who are valued & valuable. Well, we’re valuable when we can be exploited by someone else, but pearl clutching ensues when we want to profit from our own labor.
Black women have a reputation for being strong that is sometimes helpful & sometimes harmful. We do our best to survive everything that gets thrown at us. We fight the messages, we teach our kids to fight the messages, but it is 2011 & I am still seeing books, movies, TV shows, & articles lauded for explaining exactly how much less we are worth than everyone else. We can’t even tell our own stories without having to argue over whether or not we’re qualified to speak. If we’re silent others speak at top volume until we are rendered down to Mammy, Jezebel, or Sapphire with no room for reality. When we do speak up suddenly we are too loud, too angry, too confrontational, simply too much. Even when we whisper, we are doing it wrong, but trust & believe we will be heard whether anyone else likes it or not. We are women. We are black. We will not stop speaking for ourselves. Get used to it or get the fuck out of our way."

A PSA From A Loud Angry Black Woman -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

2nd 30 Day Letter Challenge: Day 17--Letter to a Politician: Freddie D and my thoughts this 4th of July

Dear American Politicians,

This letter contains excerpts from Frederick Douglass's 1852 speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" 

1. "This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations."

 So today I ask, is America still young? 235 years is much longer than 76, but cannot hold a candle to thousands, as Freddie D suggests so eloquently. So do we still have time to work things out and became a nation whose values are not, in any way, hypocritical? Do we still have time to develop the backbone to stand for things we believe in rather than fall to popular opinion? Do we still have time for popular opinion to become informed? Do we still have time to care, to see the bigger picture, to remember the meaning of the word democracy? Or has our window for greatness closed? If all the masses do to observe today is barbecue and drink and watch some fireworks, who will remember the gritty history and the gritty details of the present? Sometimes I feel like we as a nation are hungover after having gotten drunk on our own ideals, and now we're too out of it to do anything but lay in bed with a cold compress and watch it all play out. We need to wake the fuck up and do something. That's the meaning of independence. In that vein:

2. "We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child’s share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence."

 Next I say that having never really experienced any other part of the world, I am patriotic almost to a fault. Though I hope to do some traveling eventually at some point, the US of A is the end-all be-all for me, and I'm okay with that. There's nothing I'd rather be than American. There is nothing I would rather be than a black American, but that means that, like Freddie D all those years ago, I would like to call attention to the things America overlooks as we celebrate ourselves today. He calls attention to the peculiar institution of American slavery:

3. "I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just. But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light?"

I would like to call attention to its lasting effects, as well as to the lasting effects of the fourth value this country was raised on: 'life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness[, and patriarchy].' I want to ask you, America, whether you are celebrating poverty and the disproportionate percentages of women, children, and people of color [and their women and children most of all] who fall below the poverty line in this country. I want to call attention to the wage gap between men and women. I want to call attention to the fact that, according to multiple very-well run audit studies by one of my professors, Devah Pager, it is easier for a white man with a criminal record than a black man with no criminal background to get a JOB in this country, and that was BEFORE the recession hit. I want you to remember the founders' cries of "No taxation without representation!" and ask yourself who exactly our legislators represent. Is the nation's best interest those of its richest or its poorest? America, are you celebrating our failing public schools? Our inability to truly separate church and state and recognize love in all its forms? The tightening and tightening of border control and anti-immigration sentiment in a land that once proclaimed 

"Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" --Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus", mounted inside the Statue of Liberty

America, have we EVER truly been the land of the free? Certainly not when my man Freddie was talking to you, certainly not now while we have the highest incarceration rates in the entire world. Certainly not now when getting caught with a bag of weed can lose not only your liberty, by sending you to prison, but also silences your voice (as many states ban ex-felons from the ability to vote), and makes it impossible to break the cycle of poverty and self-destruction (as you cannot receive federal financial aid or welfare).

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival."

So I ask you, how much has changed? I don't want to feel like I've abandoned my people--American women, American children, American people of color--by wearing my red, white, and blue today.


Maya

I'm black. "Ally" isn't even a strong enough term for my support of gay rights. THIS ISN'T THAT RADICAL. Get over it.

“It is something resting with the parties themselves, for them to decide. If they choose to face this possible prejudice and think that their own pursuit of happiness is better subserved by entering into this marriage with all its risks than by spending the rest of their lives without each other’s company and comfort, the state should not and cannot stop them.” –Justice Carter, Perez v. Lippold (California Supreme Court case from 1948)

The powerful language found in this week’s readings for my Race and the American Legal Process class, regarding the nullification of antimiscegenation laws struck me not only for the sheer forcefulness of the Courts’ opinion, but also for the clear and profound connections these decisions seemingly should have to the current gay rights movement. I have always had an understanding that the gay rights movement has ties to the civil rights movement, and as such been thoroughly disgusted with the heteronormativity and blatant homophobia that categorize such a substantial percentage the African-American community at large, but these court cases have elevated that understanding to a new level; I honestly cannot understand how, with such potent precedent to stand on the shoulders of, LGBT rights activists have not yet secured marriage as a “fundamental…basic civil right” for same-sex couples. My first question is what exactly places the freedom to marry within the scope of basic civil rights; when was it first guaranteed that citizens of the United States have a right to marry? And after gaining a better understanding of that history, I would like to know how the heteronormativity and homophobia that led to the Defense of Marriage Act differ from the white supremacy and precept of inferiority that led to the antimiscegenation and criminalization-of-sexual-relations laws Justices Traynor, Carter, and Warren speak so forcefully against?

Call me naïve, but I am imagining a world in which the quotes from the Perez v. Lippold and Loving v. Virginia read like this:

“Since the right to marry is the right to join in marriage with the person of one’s choice, a statute that prohibits an individual from marrying a member [of his or her same sex] restricts the scope of his choice and thereby restricts his right to marry.”

“The right to marry is the right of individuals, not of [groups of people with the same sexual orientation].”

“Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry, a person of [the same sex] resides within the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

Are these conceived statements really so farfetched? What would it take to bring them to fruition?

I Made a Difference

That's what my sticker from the Red Cross says. I donated blood today. One pint can save three lives. And because I'm African-American, my blood will most likely be used to save the lives of black children with sickle cell anemia, as 90% of all sickle cell cases in the US affect African-Americans.

This makes me feel good.

But so, so much of what the Red Cross stands for makes me feel terrible. It's hard for me to reconcile the three lives I will have saved with my actions today with the fact that my actions today supported an institution that so blatantly discriminates against so many of my friends. You can't give blood if you're under age 16, or if you weigh less than 110 pounds. You can't give blood if you're a drug addict, or if you use steroids, or if you're a prostitute. You can't give blood if you've ever tested positive for HIV, if you had an STI in the last year, if you've had malaria in the last 3 years. These things I can understand.

What I cannot and will not understand, now or ever, is the fact that you are ineligible to donate blood if you:

are a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977.

I cannot and will not understand why one of the pre-screening questions asked me if I have ever had sexual contact with a person who was born in Africa.

DEAR RED CROSS, YOUR DISGUSTINGLY OVERT HOMOPHOBIA MADE SENSE IN THE 1980S, BUT HEY, GUESS WHAT, BLACK WOMEN HAVE THE HIGHEST AIDS RATES IN THE US NOW, NOT GAY MEN. AS A GROUP, THEY'RE AT NO SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER RATE OF CARRYING HIV THAN THE REST OF THE POPULATION. SO SLOW YOUR ROLL AND ALLOW MY FRIENDS F, M, S, R, B, A, ETC. TO DONATE. 
AND HEY, GUESS WHAT, NOT ALL OF AFRICA HAS RAMPANT AIDS. THERE ARE CERTAIN COUNTRIES THAT PUT YOU AT A SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER RISK, BUT AFRICA IS NOT A CONTINENT TO BE BLANKET-DISCRIMINATED OVER. I'M NOT SURE MY ANCESTORS EVEN COME PREDOMINANTLY FROM AFRICA, BUT I AM OFFENDED BY THIS QUESTION, AND I AM FURTHER OFFENDED THAT HEY, GUESS WHAT, I WOULD HAVE IN THE PAST, AND HAVE NO OBJECTIONS TOWARDS IN THE FUTURE, FUCKING AN AFRICAN MAN AND IF THAT MEANS YOU DON'T WANT MY BLOOD THEN I DON'T THINK I SHOULD WANT TO DONATE.

The Red Cross is one of the most politically incorrect national organizations in this country, and I want something to be done about this. They're legitimately begging African-Americans to donate blood and marrow, but turning away hundreds of thousands of healthy willing gay black males who could, together, save literally MILLIONS of lives. Would I have been turned away if I'd slept with J? Are you anti-amalgamation too, Red Cross? Fuck you. FUCK YOU, RED CROSS. I love and respect all the help and good you do for this country, but I hate that you make me feel bad about doing good. Something is wrong there, and I am begging you to check yourself before I have to team up with the protesters and stop saving lives. 

How many more lives could Princetonians have saved today? Are your bigotry and your illegitimate fears worth their lives? ...I didn't think so.