Re: AIDS in the USA, AIDS in the World
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.
Doug