[lbo-talk] AIDS, Race, and Class

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 2/12/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Yoshie wrote:
>
> > AIDS activism such as that of GMHC, ACT UP, etc. has changed the lives
> > of the richer half of white gay men for the better, but it doesn't
> > work as a solution for poorer men and women, especially poorer people
> > of color, and statistics shows it[....]
>
> It's been a long time, but as I recall, ACT-UP did a splendid job of
> making the transition from activism on behalf of relatively well-off
> white men to not-at-all-well-off people of color, at least in NYC. Of
> course, The System was stacked against the darker and poorer, but
> there's only so much that a group like ACT-UP could have done about
> that. Maybe someone more familiar with ACT-UP's history can fill in
> the details, but this doesn't sound like a fair criticism.

AIDS activism of ACT UP types declined as AIDS became the disease of
the poor, especially poor people of color.  Activism like that shows
the promise of identity politics but also its limit: it just doesn't
solve the problem for the poor.
-- 
Yoshie
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