Healing the Hurt


by Rita Rubin, POZ Magazine, Issue 182, September 2012 | Retrieved from the Internet on August 16, 2012 by SJ


A recent epidemic of attacks on women, transgender women and people with HIV exposes a link as toxic as the virus itself: Trauma not only fuels HIV, it also makes living with it harder. But HIV-positive women and their allies in the realms of science, medicine and social justice are ready to fight back—with programs, education and lifesaving advocacy.


http://www.poz.com/articles/Women_Trauma_HIV_2731_22821.shtml





In the middle of the night on May 24, fire ripped through the offices of Women With a Vision (WWAV), a New Orleans grassroots organization founded in 1991 to respond to HIV/AIDS in communities of color. The flames destroyed the group's offices, forcing it to relocate temporarily to a church. Deon Haywood, WWAV executive director, immediately called the fire a hate crime, and after a two-month investigation, police and fire department officials agreed, categorizing it as aggravated arson.

HIV and women's health activists see the fire as one in a series of violent attacks on women and transwomen, particularly those of color, who are advocating for their rights. The fire did more than destroy property; it also served as a cruel reminder of women's vulnerability and the violence they experience. "Since the attack on our office, I feel that many of us with Women With a Vision have revisited every trauma that we've been through," Haywood says. "Violence seems to be this normal thing, because we're used to seeing it."

Seems 3rd-world places like SA post-apartheid, are a safe-haven when hearing/reading about all these on-going hate-crime issues.

VERY disturbing to read...

Axélle

  It is disturbing.  In the 1980's, a man on his deathbed with AIDS said he got it from beating up gays.  That makes sense when that man said he did use his bare hands in the commission of the hate crimes.  If you use your bare knuckles and hit something bony, more likely it will abrade the skin enough to bleed.  There is your blood exchange. 
  HIV had mutated enough that there is less of the virus in the afflicted and it is less potent as a survival tactic.  The attackers hit these people now with things like clubs of some sort and/or their boots.  Cowardly acts.
  Joelene

Quote from: Joelene9 on August 17, 2012, 12:57:38 AM
  It is disturbing.  In the 1980's, a man on his deathbed with AIDS said he got it from beating up gays.  That makes sense when that man said he did use his bare hands in the commission of the hate crimes.  If you use your bare knuckles and hit something bony, more likely it will abrade the skin enough to bleed.  There is your blood exchange. 
  HIV had mutated enough that there is less of the virus in the afflicted and it is less potent as a survival tactic.  The attackers hit these people now with things like clubs of some sort and/or their boots.  Cowardly acts.
  Joelene

Welcome to animal kingdom... some sort of progress, but not sure it's what one had in mind when thinking "progress"- or was it "regress"?

Monkey kill, monkey die... like in the African savannah.

Axélle