March focuses on HIV/AIDS crisis

The HIV State of Emergency Campaign rolled through Dorchester on July 18 in the form of a street march organized by Healing Our Land and the New Era Movement. The marchers, led by Minister Franklin Hobbs, used loudspeakers, spirited prayer and urgent calls to make their way to the Boys and Girls Club.

Youth at Dorchester march, July 22. WW photo: Maureen Skehan

With the African-American community still bearing the heaviest weight of the HIV epidemic in Massachusetts, the marchers were determined to carry the message “Get tested, know your status” to anyone in earshot. The march was part of the “Test One Million” campaign recently launched by the Black AIDS Institute. It has been shown that when people with HIV status learn their status, they dramatically reduce their risk behavior. This can lead to fewer infections in the community.

HIV prevention programs targeting communities of color in Massachusetts have been poorly funded and have failed to curtail the epidemic. Institutionalized racism in all systems of health care funding, including HIV prevention and treatment, have resulted in countless HIV diagnoses that might have been prevented in the African-American community in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

This true crime against humanity is what has motivated the creation of the New Era Movement in Boston, led mostly by youth of color.

By the time the July 18 demonstration reached the Boys and Girls Club in the Mattapan neighborhood, it had attracted significant support. Karen Payne, president of the Boston NAACP, urged the activists to keep up their visibility campaign.

Other speakers included former City Councilor Garreth Saunders and local HIV activist Larry Day, who lives with HIV infection. In comparing the government’s response to the HIV epidemic to Hurricane Katrina, Day stated, “Hurricane HIV/AIDS has been ravaging our community for over 25 years. Look how our government has treated the people of Louisiana. We can’t wait for the city and state governments to save us.”

Support for the march came from many quarters, including Boston City Councilor Charles Yancey, Minister Dan Walker of the New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Framingham and Minister Henry Tweah of Grace Church of All Nations. Youth activists from the New Era Movement and the Boston Youth Organizing Project passed out surveys along the route and urged people to get tested. Other support came from the Design Studio, the Stonewall Warriors and the Women’s Fightback Network.

Under capitalism, government obeys the orders of private-sector drug and insurance companies first; what is left after profit and war spending is trickled down to the suffering masses. This profit model dictates policy to public health departments at all levels who claim they are powerless to increase needed funding while $341 million a day is spent on Iraq and Afghanistan (www.costofwar.com). Corporate state control then extends to government-funded AIDS service non-profits that are tightly controlled by their funders.

The result is needless death and suffering. In 2004-2005 African Americans in Massachusetts accounted for the largest number of new infections among those tested at public health clinics. The African-American population is barely one-thirteenth of the state population.