Low intensity warfare is being waged in black and brown communities. It
is being waged on the bodies of young women of color yet never commands
the high octane exposure and focus that black on black, brown on brown
or brown/black homicide elicits on the media stage. AIDS activists
of color have noted that the skyrocketing numbers of blacks and Latinos
with AIDS and the relative decline in the numbers of white male victims
have caused mainstream national philanthropic, media, and celebrity
attention to shift from AIDS advocacy. As young black and Latino
men and women become the face of HIV/AIDS in urban America the megawatt
focus of the eighties and nineties has dimmed appreciably. Gone
are the self-consciously altruistic red ribbon wearing celebs and lavish
benefit galas studded with A-list dilettantes. Gone, for the
most part, are the high profile AIDS walks, biking fundraisers and
heart-rending films of innocent child victims. The global “browning” of
the AIDS epidemic has made the draconian politics of race, class, and
gender all the more transparent in the U.S. Before Africa and
Asia emerged as the new epicenters of the epidemic, the “marketing” of
the disease as a deserving cause for social reform was directly connected
to white victims whose bodies were deemed valuable enough for redemption. For
policymakers who subscribe to the eugenicist ideology of the Bell Curve,
the ravaging of black and brown communities by HIV/AIDS is merely another
form of biological determinism that confirms the scourge of inner city
pathology.
Bush era policies restricting
comprehensive sex education underscore this dynamic. While HIV/AIDS
activists have lobbied tirelessly for sex education that emphasizes
prevention and cultural awareness, nationwide many teen sex education
curricula promote a flat earth abstinence-only approach or limit youth
access to information on safe-sex resources. (California law prohibits
the promotion of abstinence-only curricula in its schools). The
predominance of abstinence-only sex education in regions such as the
South and the Midwest is one of the primary factors in the increase
of HIV/AIDS cases among American teenagers. Although countless
studies have shown that abstinence-only approaches fail to curb adolescent
sex, the federal government continues to pour billions of dollars into
faith-based abstinence programs.
The devastating impact that
HIV/AIDS is having on young people of color has been exhaustively chronicled
by the Black AIDS Institute and Los Angeles-based HIV/AIDS advocacy
organizations like Women Alive. According to the Institute, abstinence-only
approaches not only restrict information about condoms and reproductive
health resources but further imperil youth with outright misinformation
on reproduction and STDs. Falsehoods about how HIV can be contracted
through touching, toilet seats, and other forms of casual contact amount
to propaganda that puts youth at risk.
Further, the inability of young women of color to protect
themselves from the brute force of the epidemic is reflected in the
regime of media assassinations of black and Latina femininity. While
both black and Latina women are routinely depicted as hypersexual and
promiscuous, they are also socialized to believe that they need the
attention of men to validate them. According to UCLA behavioral
scientist Dr. Gail Wyatt, women who have a history of sexual assault/molestation
are especially at risk for contraction of the virus. This is
hardly a surprising correlation. Women who have a distorted sense
of self-esteem because of these experiences are typically more vulnerable
to sexual exploitation by men who feel that wearing a condom demeans
their “manhood.” Indeed, “in one study young
African American teenage women felt that not using a condom with a
steady partner was a symbol of trust in their partner and their relationship.” Statistically,
young women of color are more likely to be involved with older partners
who may feel that they don’t need to practice safe sex due to
a proprietary sense of ownership over their younger female partners. Young
women of color are also more likely to be involved with multiple partners. These
factors, in addition to the disproportionate number of people of color
in prison who are exposed to the virus, put young women of color at
greater risk than their white counterparts.
The absence of meaningful sex education in middle schools and high
schools has also led to an increase in the contraction of STDs such
as oral herpes and Chlamydia. Given the porn glorifying cultural cues
that young women receive about their self worth it is not difficult
for women who are ignorant of the relationship between exposure to
saliva, semen, and the transmission of herpes and HIV/AIDS to delude
themselves that unprotected oral sex is not as dangerous as vaginal
sex. The prevalence of popular hip hop and rock songs that tout
oral sex as an easy means of “getting off” help promote
the misguided notion that a quick blowjob is a harmless way for young
women to prove their allegiance to their “men” without
any serious health or emotional consequences. And while mainstream
focus on “down low” relationships among black men
has highlighted the degree to which the heterosexist and homophobic
policing of sexuality has had deadly consequences for black women and
their families, sex education programs that provide culturally relevant
information for the particular life experiences of teenagers of color
are virtually nonexistent.
Although California passed sex and HIV/AIDS prevention education legislation
in 2004, California Senate Bill 1471 advocates mandatory implementation
of comprehensive sex education on preventing unwanted pregnancy, HIV/AIDS
and other STDs. This bill prohibits bias against underrepresented
groups including the LGBT community, restricts the promotion of religious
doctrine or dogma, and requires that students be provided with the
most current medically accurate information on reproduction, STDs,
and HIV/AIDS. The bill will be heard in the Assembly on August
9th. Because of its prohibition of religious bias a few “pro-family” organizations
have come out in opposition to the bill, underscoring the grave danger
that the faith-based assault on public health education poses to women
of color. The human rights crisis of HIV/AIDS demands that schools
in communities on the frontlines of this epidemic begin to account
for the complexity of choices that young women of color are forced
to make.
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