As I See It...: September 2008

Monday, September 29, 2008

Not just another day at the fair... Folsom Street Fair 2008

http://daviolicious.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/folsom_poster1smsm.jpg

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

This is your nation on White Privilege

By Tim Wise

9/15/08

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school, requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Young Black [gay/bi] Men at High Risk for HIV, CDC says

		Young black men at high risk for HIV, CDC says Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, September 12, 2008 A new, detailed picture released Thursday of the swath of HIV infections nationally illustrates the severe impact the virus is taking on young black gay and bisexual men, black women, and white gay and bisexual men in their 30s and 40s. The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for the first time breaking down new infections in terms of race, gender and age, shows an alarming prevalence of the disease in young black men. The report found that the number of new infections in black gay and bisexual men 13 to 29 years old is roughly twice that of white or Hispanic gay men in the same age group. "The house has been on fire for African American gay men for many years," says Mark Cloutier, chief executive of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. "It keeps spreading, and we aren't bringing the fire corps to it." The new analysis - based on 2006 figures, the latest available - also shows that among Hispanic men who have sex with other men, most new infections are occurring in the 13-29 age group. Overall, white gay men account for almost half the number of new HIV cases with most of them among white men 30 to 39 years old, followed by those 40 to 49 years old. Additionally, the report found that while there were fewer new HIV infections among black women than black men, black women are disproportionately affected by HIV compared with women of other races, with an incidence rate nearly 15 times as high as white women and nearly four times as high as Hispanic women. The study augments a CDC report last month that documented a significantly higher-than-expected rate of new HIV infections in the United States in 2006 - 56,300 actual infections compared with the estimate of 40,000. "In short, we learned that the HIV epidemic is worse than was previously known," said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention during a telephone news conference Thursday. He said the report will help public health experts more directly target prevention efforts to "ensure that HIV infection doesn't become a rite of passage for young gay and bisexual men." "That means we need to reach each new generation ... early in their lives to provide the knowledge and skills they'll need to prevent infection," Fenton said. "At the same time, we must develop strategies for keeping (older gay men) HIV-free for life." Dr. Richard Wolitski, acting director of the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, said new infections can be attributed to such factors as "lack of access to effective HIV prevention services and underestimation of personal risk." "Many younger men have not personally experienced the severity of the early AIDS epidemic," he said. Bay Area experts said the report underscores the critical need to educate the young. "For some time, we've tried to come up with strategies to get young people to take fewer risks and to make smart decisions with their partners," said Jimmy Loyce, executive director of the San Francisco-based Black Coalition on AIDS. "Young people still believe they are bulletproof - it happens to other people, not to them." That's how Phillip Garcia felt when he was a teenager. Now 22, Garcia, who is African American and Hispanic, learned in December that he is HIV-positive. He said he probably contracted the virus when he was 15 or 16, and living in Texas, his home state. "As I got further into my teens, I became more cautious and more educated, but by then, it was too late," said Garcia, a freshman at UCSF who is studying fashion design. "In the black and Latino communities, there is a sense of machismo - a lot of men don't disclose that they are having sex with other men. We need to better inform young people. Sexual experimentation is beginning so early for a lot of kids. I don't think the message is being delivered as strongly as it should be in school or at home." Ryan Fails said he never got the message when he was growing up in Ohio. Nor did he pay much heed when he was in his early 20s and living in Washington, D.C. Fails, 27, who is white and African American, learned he had HIV two years ago. "In school, there was more focus on teen pregnancy and things like syphilis and crabs," said Fails, a San Francisco resident who worked as a political consultant. "We really didn't go into AIDS. I never thought that AIDS applied to me." E-mail Elizabeth Fernandez at efernandez@sfchronicle.com . This article appeared on page A - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle