In the year 2008, someone actually said this? Yep, and not just any old John or Jan Q Public either! Matt Foreman, head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force!! This man who supposedly works to change the way society looks at us and treats us, actually opened his mouth on Friday and made that statement. You're telling me that it is our fault that since this epidemic began, an estimated 21.8 million people have died of AIDS (17.5 million adults and 4.3 million children under 15)? You have got to be out of your mind!!! That is ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that the majority of people living with it now is no longer gay, white, and male, but African Americans and other groups. It's bad enough that there are still whole segments of the straight population who are not educated about the AIDS virus, and who are passing it around like the offering plate at church, (you know, passing it on as quickly as possible) but when you start having members of the gay community, members who are supposed to be activists fighting for our rights who are blaming us for it, well, I just don't know what to think of the kind of world we've come to. It's like having another black person tell me that slavery was the fault of the slaves on the Amistad........
People, wake up! HIV/AIDS is a HUMAN disease; it's not gay or straight, it's not black or white, old or young, druggie or alcoholic; HIV/AIDS is something that ANYONE can get if they are not careful. The whole country seems to have gotten over the first scare, and has relaxed into an attitude of "oh, well, let someone else worry about it". Everyone thinks it's not going to happen to them, it's only the drug addicts, or the gays, or the guys in jail; not true. You want to see whose disease HIV/AIDS is today? It belongs to the children in Africa who got it from their mothers; it belongs to the woman who got it from her boyfriend; and if you're not careful about what you do and who you do it with, it could belong to YOU.
6 comments:
How sad...seriously. There is still a huge stigma with HIV/Aids..not to even mention the people who are still in the dark about Hep C. But when the comment comes from someone who is supposed to "represent" a group of people that are already experience enough discrimination, that is just fuel to the fire.
On a happier note...you look fabulous girl!!! Jamaica suits you...:)
Lori
Thank you dahlin'!! Jamaica definitely agrees with me, I'm already making plans for the Labor Day weekend! Course I don't know if my pocket can stand it, but I'm sure going to try!
This story is inaccurate. Mr. Foreman’s comments have not caused controversy within or "rattled" the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) community. Yes, HIV is a gay disease, but we also know it’s a heterosexual disease; a disease that affects women and men, young and old.
Foreman was calling our community and the government to task for failing to respond to the growing rates of HIV infection among African Americans, particularly gay and bisexual men. By taking one snippet of his remarks out of context, you are missing the point entirely. Here’s the full text of what Mr. Foreman said:
“Today, right now, more than 45 percent of African-American gay and bi men in key urban areas are infected with HIV, with a 33 percent increase in new diagnoses among our brothers under age 30 over the past six years. Today, right now, African Americans are nearly 10 times more likely than white people to be diagnosed with AIDS.
The response — internal to our community and external — is appallingly racist. Internally, when these numbers come out, the “established” gay community seems to have a collective shrug as if this isn’t our problem. Folks, with 70 percent of the people in this country living with HIV being gay or bi, we cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease. We have to own that and face up to that.
Even more disgusting is the response of our government. Of the 129 interventions developed and approved by the CDC to address HIV in the African-American community, only one has been designed for gay black men. Twenty-six years into the epidemic and only one out of 129 addresses the group of people most affected by HIV. And, on top of that, funding for meaningful and honest prevention programs has been systematically excised from the federal budget. If these things don’t prove that our government considers the lives of gay black men utterly expendable, I don’t know what does.”
A full text of Foreman's remarks can be found at http://www.thetaskforce.org/press/releases/prcc08_mfspeech_020808.
Roberta Sklar
Communications Director
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Good girl Pookie, you are attracting attention to noteworthy issues, and that is what these forums do.. Hopfully they might actually be the beginnings of initiating change...The pen is mightier than the sword...
Lori
So they say Lori, so they say....
After reading the whole statement he made, while I agree with most of his points, I think he chose an appalling way to make that one particular statement. What did he think was going to happen when he said it's a gay disease and we need to own up to that? Even knowing the true context, it sounds like he's saying that we're solely responsible for it. There had to be a better way to make his point. Gays are not solely responsible for it, and if he'd even added the phrase 'along with everyone else who is passing this thing around.'(or something to that effect) after he said "Folks, with 70 percent of the people in this country living with HIV being gay or bi, we cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease. We have to own that and face up to that." it would have made it much better. If a lesbian took it the wrong way as it was stated, can you imagine what the homophobes are doing with it?
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