AIDS is a ‘Human Disease’

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Emory Wheel- November 24, 1987

While reviewing the Emory Wheel and Emory Reports of the late 1980’s/early 1990’s it is no surprise that I found more and more articles pertaining to the fears and the education of AIDS. There are articles that educated the Emory community on the spread of AIDS and how it is contracted (NOT by causal means as most feared) while other articles concentrated on the support the community must share with the AIDS positive individuals.

I also found numerous advertisements for Safe Sex Lectures for students and even a questioner that posted questions by students on the AIDS epidemic. Common questions such as “Can you get AIDS/ HIV from a toilet seat?” and “Is AIDS more common in poor neighborhoods?” These and many others are questions that Emory students received answers to.  Sign up sheets for AIDS walks also made an appearance in these issues of the Emory Report and Wheel which shows the growing support for the AIDS community. All of these articles serve to understand AIDS and show support for those who had fallen ill.

The most interesting of them all, for me, was a particular article called “AIDS is ‘human disease’ according to panel.” It discusses the impact that this disease can bring to the human race and that it is indeed a human disease in that it can be contracted by anyone; no matter your gender, sex, religion, nationality, AIDS can be contracted by anyone.

The most powerful quote, given by Max Pessess, a worker from Center for Disease Control said “AIDS is a human disease which can and does threatened our society, (It) is not a gay disease.” This quote carries significant weight in that it proves wrong that only gays are contracting AIDS and that it can also infect heterosexuals: that the entire human race is in the same boat and thus all eligible to contract the disease. AIDS is not discriminatory so it is not correct for us to assume that it is only spread in the gay community. It is indeed a ‘human disease.’ Roy Griffin (AIDS positive) also appeared in the article and quotes, “All walks of life are afflicted with the AIDS virus; babies, women, blacks, Hispanics, straights, gays and even a 69-year-old grandmother.” These two quotes are significant in that they challenge the stereotype that AIDS is only a gay disease.  We as a community need to realize that “people who have AIDS are just that: People, who have AIDS (Karen Genry).”

This article is appropriate for the time because it not only serves to educate and others on the severity of the AIDS epidemic but it also serves to enlighten others that people with AIDS are no different from anyone else and thus they shouldn’t be neglected. People should not fear those with AIDS but should fear AIDS itself as an un-discriminatory virus that could potentially have devastating effects on the human race.

Exploring Sexuality

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College is a place where young adults experiment with many different things in an attempt to learn about themselves. Therefore it should not come as a surprise that sexuality is a topic that students come face to face with frequently. The authors of the articles Hooking Up and In the Same Boat even chose to interview college students and recent grads to learn more about the way sexuality is encountered.
The general undertone of their works suggests that the experience for males is for the most part a positive one. On the other hand, females must navigate this experience on a fine line, with threat of being viewed negatively if they step outside the social norms. Males seemed to be focus on performance and quantity. These two ideals have the capability to confirm their delicate machismo. Women on the other hand do not have the same freedom. They must not engage in sexual activity with a wide range of partners for fear of being called ‘slutty’. However, they must not refrain from all sexual encounters entirely because that would remove them from the heterosexual social frame. Thus, these women turn to socially constructed relationship terms to be able to freely engage in sexual activity without the social repercussions.
In class the idea of female selectivity was brought up with respect to evolutionary biology. The idea states that a female has a lot more invested in the production of her offspring than the male counterpoint does, and therefore will be more selective with whom she mates with. I have two things to add to this. Firstly, female selectivity implies that there must be competition among males. It has been shown in many other species as well as humans that males will go to great lengths in courtship behaviors. Taking with respect to the In the Same Boat article, the pressure these men feel to perform well in their sexual encounters may be a manifestation of this male competition driven by female selectivity. Another point to be made is to challenge the assumption that the female has the most invested in sexual reproduction. Reproductive fitness is a measure of how successful an organism is at producing offspring that survive to reproductive age and continue to pass on their hereditary information. There are two main methods to achieve this: have a large number offspring and by probability some of them will survive, or have a small number of offspring and dedicate a lot of care and support to make sure that a high percentage of them survive.  Human babies rely heavily on their parents for a number of years. A male presence as a supportive figure in a committed relationship with children would likely greatly increase that child’s likelihood of survival and success. Therefore it would be in the male’s evolutionary advantage to stick around after conception.
However I really think that the heterosexual hooking up phenomenon is due to the social structure of college. In college, both men and women want to explore sexual options and I feel starting a family is not necessarily on anyone’s minds. The fact that some women stated this desire may be a result of the negative consequences that come when women act outside the norms. I think a study more representative of coeds aged in the late 20s and 30s would show a greater emphasis on settling down as the novelty of exploring sexuality may have run its course.

Not So Shy Anymore

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Society today has a habit of scrutinizing sex and attempting to operationalize an act that to many, has different determining factors. This week’s in-class discussion regarding hook-ups and bootycalls simply serves as one example of the varying ways to interpret sexual acts while taking into account the context in which these acts take place. Kathleen A. Bogle in “Hooking Up: Men, Women, and the Sexual Double Standard” conducted interviews with college students on multiple subjects including the difference between certain sexual actions like, for example, a bootycall and a hook up. According to her findings “a bootycall is a late night phone call placed, often via cell phone, to an earlier hookup partner, inviting him or her over for another hookup encounter.” With terms like this circulating throughout the societal word bank, I cannot help but wonder what it was like back in the day. Were the Emory students of the 1950s and 1960s, or even the 1990s, going to parties in search of a hookup and potential bootycall, according to Bogle’s definition? If so, were they calling it this? The prevalence of sex in society of these time periods is something I have wondered about before.

What better place to seek clues regarding how sexual society was than the health services section of the yearbook? This section outlining the different services that the Emory clinic offers often implies something. For example, many health services excerpts one would encounter today would likely include something about contraceptives and ways to avoid a plethora of sexually transmitted diseases and infections. In addition, I would not be surprised to read about forms of birth control that are available or even simply something about how condoms can prevent unwanted pregnancy. Yet, even in 1999, the Health Services section of the yearbook simply mentioned HIV testing. Not to say that I would expect the Health Services portion today to seem like a brochure from Planned Parenthood, but rather that in current times, certain sources of health services would likely mention more about health issues related to sex. My hypothesis is that this is because we are more comfortable talking about sex (or hookups or bootycalls or whatever you may what to call it) today that people were in the past.

This can be both a good thing and a bad thing. On the one hand, the fact that we are accepting sex can positively contribute to a “Sex-Positive Society,” as Elroi J. Windsor and Elizabeth O. Burgess would put it. Yet on the other hand, this acceptance has lead to a highly sexualized society in which sex is seen as more than just an action, but a tool; a way of persuasion and manipulation. In the media, sex sells. It is the carpool lane on a freeway packed with vehicles of politics, the economy, and religion. It is, perhaps, a universal language. But the fact of the matter still remains, sex, today, seems to be more widely discussed than in past times. This is reflected in ways ranging from pop culture to the way in which healthcare is pitched.

 

Note Oct 11, 2012 (13)

Note Oct 11, 2012 (12)

How we spread AIDS through Discrimination

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Ferraro Speech on Discrimination. Emory Report 1988

On October 1988, Geraldine Ferraro, the first Democratic female candidate for Vice President, addressed the consequence of discrimination and the health of our nation.

“According to Ferraro, discrimination is a dysfunctional and maladaptive                               tendency. It gives rise to hunger, crime, and the spread of one of the                                     century’s most debilitating diseases- AIDS.”

This article, found in the Emory Report for October 10, 1988 addresses some important questions. Does discriminations directly correlate with the spread of HIV AIDS? If this is true then, does discrimination directly lead to the lose of lives? We have already encountered how radical discrimination can lead to destruction and mass death as in Holocaust Nazi Germany and how it only took one man to raise a community against a specific people. This one idea- this one negative distinction was responsible for millions of lives. How about today? Will our ignorance and lack of understanding eventually transform to massive death? Can we realize that because of discrimination, we are robbing society of talent, artistic expression and individuality? I think that these are the questions that Ferraro herself had and tried to emphasize in her speech.

If this is true, that we are a discriminatory society, then are we (the public) more responsible for the spread of AIDS then the actual AIDS holders? If we cannot realize that the LGBTQ community is just as much as part of our society then, can we realize that we too are also responsible for sickness, fear, and crime? Ferraro explained that if you have an individual who was HIV AIDS positive then he/she would be less likely to advertise it because of the negative views of society. Society will automatically assume that this person is rather pernicious and if he is male, then that automatically makes him gay and not “normal.” What if however, this individual contracted AIDS from his mother, who was AIDS positive, does that make him less fit? Or what if this individual was a health care provider and he somehow contracted the disease by an infected needle? How are we going to know this if we are going to automaticity assume that he is gay? For this reason, these individuals are less likely to advertise and inquirer others of their illness and thus, spread the virus even further.

I think that this speech is appropriate for its time, the 1980’s, because of the huge increase of AIDS positive cases in the United States. This was a way for Ferraro to voice her concerns of our well-being and tried to educate others on the negative affects of discrimination towards others. If individuals begin to claim their disease, do we as a society still need to make their lives more difficult by separating them from society and deeming them “bad” for everyone? No, I think that once someone has the courage and wiliness to claim their illness do we (the public) then have to recognize this accomplishment and honor them by accepting them for their courage and lend them support.

“Non-dicrimation must become more than just a nice idea. Discrimination is the most unpatriotic of acts. By blocking the expression of talent and by preventing individuals from soaring, they (institutions) rob the entire nation of the greatness it could attain.” – Geraldine Ferraro

Why is it so much harder for black men?

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When I asked my roommate if she knew what being on the down low was, she asked me if I meant at Emory or in the real world. “At Emory, it’s just like keeping something secret or discreet but… [the down low] is really about being gay,” she told me. After telling her about Boykin’s description of the original meaning behind the phrase1, she explained that in the HIV positive community, it’s pretty obvious no one thinks the phrase is used to describe a cheater. Having never heard the phrase outside of the ‘Emory’ connotation, I honestly wouldn’t have guessed either meaning.

I have never been actively involved in activism to de-stigmatize anything, but until college I had never really been exposed to the stigma associated with drug use or homosexuality. Perhaps because of the acceptance offered in my community or simply a lack of exposure to the levels faced in other communities, I had a hard time believing that such problems were so prevalent.

In the book Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South, Johnson interviewed men about their experiences over time with or without committed partners. The interviews tended to include details about monogamy, family reactions, how men met their partners and how others had treated them because of their sexuality. Although the interviews occurred in the South and the men involved had all settled there, many interviews included details about partners living or being from somewhere out west (many in California) or the men meeting partners in other places. They didn’t all experience the same problems. Some had a much less difficult time of finding acceptance than others, however, they all experienced some major form of social discrimination or family pressure2.

The South is often depicted as more religious and conservative than most of the United States. In fact, this is definitely the case. Even within the last decade, interviews and research have shown that homosexuality is still a serious battle to face. In Charleston, the fight for same sex marriage hasn’t even reached a point where it’s worth advocating, because more basic issues have yet to be addressed3. Right now gay and lesbian advocates are currently working with police and school districts to promote work place equality and enact hate-crime laws. Promoting these small steps of improvement across South Carolina is their first goal.

There is such a large population of gay men in Atlanta that I have luckily gotten to become acquainted with a few of them and now feel more knowledgeable about and driven to actively support the rights of all LGBTQ people. While across Georgia things might be different, I haven’t seen much animosity toward gay men in Atlanta. I must admit however, that I don’t know many black gay men. It is only through our readings, as well as the stories of friends and peers, that I have been exposed (and only slightly) to the often completely unsupportive opinions of the black community toward non-heterosexuals.

This lack of support is one of many examples of how African American males face more challenges and are given less support in the United States compared to other racial groups. According to a former chair of the Twenty-First Century Foundation, Reverend Alfonso Wyatt, black men and boys face unequal opportunities in “education, housing, health, structural employment, and disproportion in the criminal justice/foster care systems4.” I think a lot of the stigmatism surrounding black homosexuality can be tied to these deficits. A lack of education produces more ignorance in the community regarding HIV, an increased amount of time spent incarcerated increases the risk of having unprotected sex or even being raped, and less access to health care increases the risk of unknowingly transmitting diseases.

In a region of the country that is still so very far from acceptance, these disadvantages compound on black males to make their sexuality a big, must hide, secret. This creates a stigmatism that makes getting tested for HIV at a minimum difficult and embarrassing, but more often simply impossible. It creates the viewpoint that a black man always needs a ‘front’2 demonizing the men that won’t “come out” and say they’re gay.

South Africa just became the first country to nationally recognize a symbol, a six-colored flag, for the LGBTQI community5. Yet even in this country that already allows same sex marriage, the group that designed this flag is still working to spread the word to fight homophobia and promote equality.

 

[1] Boykin, K. (2010) 10 Things You Should Know About the DL. Stombler, Mindy (Ed), Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader. (pp. 336-337) Boston: Ally & Bacon

[2] Johnson, E. P. (2008) Sweet Magnolias: Love and Relationships. Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South. (pp. 430-472) Chapel Hill: UNC Press

[3] Parker, Adam. (Aug 1, 2011) Being gay in Charleston: Socially, legally and religiously, attitudes are changing, but homosexuality is still very much in the minority. The Post and Courier. Charleston, SC. Oct 7, 2012 http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20110801/PC1602/308019952

[4] Badawy, Manuela. (2012) Soros urges philanthropists to invest in African American males. Reuters. New York http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/01/us-foundations-soros-idUSBRE89018R20121001

[5] Nathan, Melanie. (2012) South Africa first to recognize gay flag as an official national symbol. LGBTQNation. http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/10/south-africa-first-to-recognize-gay-flag-as-an-official-national-symbol/

Hate within Hate

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The south to me, is a very complicated entity. The south has a lot of hate but at the same time a great sense of unity (much like the entire United States). I think this sense of hate and unity is reflected by the African American culture, especially in the south. And in my opinion, black culture is a perfect model of “the culture of the excluded”.

All types of people, (Irish/Hispanic/Arab/Asian) have all had moments in their history as Americans where they have been hated and secluded, few more so than America’s black population. The article presented above brings to mind an issue i mentioned in my last blog, hate within groups that are discriminated against.

In the black community, being homosexual and acting gay is looked down upon. Just like how, in some white southern communities acting black or gay is looked down upon. Just like how in some areas of the United States, the South is looked down upon. Which brings me to my final point. On this planet, filled with many different people, cultures, races, sexualities, and religions, America itself is hated against. In terms of identity, I am first a Muslim and second an American. Based on those to aspects of my identity there are numerous people that could hate me. EVERY TIME i have left the country to go visit family in the “old country” or to go on vacation, the fact that i am a proud American (one who is  proud to claim his USA on any occasion at any location and hostility level) will bring me some very blatant and obvious hate. Our planet is filled with different people, and somehow we have managed to find a way to hate each other for the trivial differences that actually make us strong. A fundamental biological principle is that variance is good for a population, it leads to increased survivability when the environment changes (which it eventually will).

I think that the struggle of the Gay and Lesbian community is much like that of any other minority, and in the last 20-30 years they have been going through one of the roughest parts of American acceptance. The author in this article compares ELGO groups to Black student groups and rightfully so. Do we not acknowledge these people for being hated against and not having an easy pursuit of happiness, and by doing this do we sometimes try to help them out? Does this acknowledgement invite hate towards the very group these organizations try to uplift into social acceptance?

Of course we make these groups to help discriminated people find a place, and of course the existence of these groups will cause hateful out lash just because they exist. As a Muslim American living in a post 9/11 America I have grown up in the prime of the Muslim/Pakistani hate, the prime of the paranoia. And what did I find? Hate for Blacks, Gays, Jews, Southerners, Indians and other American groups is so prevalent within the Muslim American population itself that i grew to hate the very people i was a part of. True Hate within Hate. All Americans hate on each other, but I honestly think that until one has been hated and until one has had the right to hate back, a human being can not truly appreciate what they have and are a part of. Hate will not and can not disappear until we  as a people realize that there is a thin line between love and hate, and that most hate comes from the pain one will suffer at the hands of another hurt and pained individual. One must realized that the hate one expresses is often the hate that one will be confronted with.

In my opinion we do not hate each other, not at all. Our biological responses to love and hate are the very similar, so when we see someone who we hate that feeling is nothing but a reflection of the love that we all wish we would have gotten. The love we all wish we could have shared.