After reading Chavez's piece of writing it made me think about the discrimination that went into the HIV/AIDS narrative. For example, Chavez writes that certain subjects such as "imperialism, poverty, homophobia, sexism, and racism" were the real problem when it came to this deadly disease. Of course, the disease in itself was a problem at hand but what I am getting at is that there was a narrative clearly that gay white men were the only ones carrying this disease. Even though Magic Johnson was as straight as they could possibly come admitting to sleeping with thousands of women which eventually lead to him contracting HIV.
There was a lot of racism involved in 1983 when it came to this disease, for example, "Haitians" was a legit factor in advertisements for this disease for what kind of people are carrying it. Basically putting an image in Americans heads that all people from Haiti have HIV/AIDS and you should never go there and help out their community. Or the fact that they tried to drive away people who were homosexual from a community which ultimately lead to more discrimination and homophobia and is most likely why there is still so much homophobia all around the world. HIV/AIDS can be carried by anybody but the media wanted to work against a select group of people which they still do to this day.
Chavez, Karma R. “ACT UP, Haitian Migrants, and Alternative Memories of HIV/AIDS.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 98, no. 1, Feb. 2012, pp. 63–68.
Hi David! I also wrote about Chavez's article and took a similar approach. I think the fear that people have in the United States about immigrants from other countries is so ridiculous. The people here are willing to do anything to keep others out of the country. It's also a nod to the homophobia we see in the US. Keeping Haitians out of the United States accomplished only two things: instilling a fear of "diseased" immigrants in US citizens, and promoting homophobia.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteI agree, this article was crazy to think about the US denying an entire country due to HIV. I think the US is okay with any white refugee, but anything other than that is not okay, and pressure other Americans to fear other immigrants, especially people of color.