[lbo-talk] AIDS in the USA, AIDS in the World

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 2/13/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Feb 13, 2007, at 10:40 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > I'm not claiming it should -- I'm saying it can't.  Is it so
> > controversial to point out the model of identity politics doesn't work
> > for the poor?
>
> First of all, as has been pointed out, first by my own weak memory
> then by Jim Straub's more vivid experience, some chapters of ACT-UP
> did do a lot for the poor. Second, it's reductive to call ACT-UP
> identity politics; they represented a group of people facing an
> imminent horrible death. That certainly contributed to their focus,
> intensity, and creativity, which limits their replicability as a
> model. But they weren't so much around being gay but around a
> disease. (I remember talking to one of their drug experts back in the
> 80s - who is almost certainly dead now - and being blown away by how
> much he'd learned about virology, pharmacology, and the medical
> industry. Talk about organic intellectuals.) And third, you play the
> identity game when it suits you - you're always pointing out how X
> ignores the dark, the female, the Muslim.

That some ACT UP chapters tried to do a lot for the poor hardly
contradicts the overall decline of ACT UP-type activism or the idea
that ACT UP-type activism can't be a model of activism that would
provide a solution to the problems that the poor confront.

As for identity politics in general, my contention is not that it
never does any good but that it has its promise but also its limit and
that it is MIA in where it is needed and strong in where it is
inadequate.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
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