human rights

An Open Letter to the HRC →

July 13, 2013
February 16, 2014
December 5, 2014

Dear Human Rights Campaign,

Where is the outrage?

Do something. At the very least, say something. I started to send this letter after Zimmerman was acquitted after killing unarmed Trayvon; I started again to send this letter after a grand jury declared a mistrial in Michael Dunn’s killing of unarmed Jordan Davis; and now, the non indictment after Darren Wilson’s killing of unarmed Michael Brown. This whole exercise has become a sickening exposition of this country’s ongoing and escalating brazen racial terrorism — a perverse, unending mad-lib of innocent Black murders met with White impunity:

”__________________ (unarmed black man’s name) was shot and killed by ________________________ (white police officer’s/ or white private citizen’s name) and was ____________________ (not charged, not indicted, acquitted [circle one]) and walks free. “

And that’s not even mentioning Akai Gurley who was killed “accidentally” by an officer in a Brooklyn stairwell; and that’s not even mentioning the killing of Tamir Rice in Cleveland with his toy gun. And that’s not even mentioning Eric Garner who was choked to death in Staten Island over loose cigarettes. And that’s not even mentioning all the names of the Black and Brown innocents whom we don’t know. Because presumably, for every name that is publicized, there are many more names of innocents that aren’t and never will be. It seems callous and blind to celebrate gains in marriage equality on one hand while in the very same moment, the civil rights of a major section of the LGBTQ community are being grossly violated. The Human Rights Campaign’s visible, vocal support would be momentous in bolstering the sustained national critique and reinforcing the “in the streets” protests that are happening all around the nation. Our civil rights are under attack.

Especially given the 2012 Gallup’s recent finding that non-whites are disproportionally more likely to identify as LGBTQ, I’d expect that our leading “equality” organizations would take an aggressive stance and wield the voice of its expansive membership; and lend its expansive legal networks, political cache, and financial resources to the struggle to change the “Stand Your Ground” law and other flawed legislation like it.

The HRC should be just as vocal in its dissent about racial injustice as it is in celebrating the coming out of celebrities. If we are ever going to overcome the artificial divide between the African-American community and the LGBTQ community (which have been overlapping communities with common goals and the shared dream of equal citizenship in this country from Bayard Rustin onward) now is the time to fortify and publicly announce that solidarity. Imagine the power in knowing that a hate crime committed against a Black person would necessarily incur the scrutiny and political response of the entire LGBTQ community, and conversely that a crime committed against a LGBTQ person would necessarily incur the scrutiny and political response of the entire Black community.

What does it matter if we can marry or be openly ourselves if the children raised from our unions cannot be protected? The repeated judicial and legislative failure to hold individuals and institutions accountable for the value of Black lives represents not just an attack on Black and Brown people, but is an attack on LGBTQ people. HRC should take immediate action to defend and affirm the members of its community. If it really is one struggle — one civil rights movement — then let it truly be ONE movement. Let’s stand together on all fronts. We must speak up for each other. I’m urging HRC to please…. do something.

It is not enough to ACT UP, but we must ACT UP all the time.

Respectfully,
Dee Rees

HIV-positive Koreans worry about being shut out of employment →

pozliving:

This is fucking insane too.

by Um Ji-won, staff reporter

It was a dream job. Back in October, Jeong Myeong-jin, 27, (not his real name) landed a job at a major corporate affiliate.

But while the other successful candidates were rejoicing, he was very troubled. Before being hired on, he had to undergo a physical screening. The checkup form passed out at the designated hospital included a category for human immunodeficiency virus.

Jeong is HIV-positive.

“I had no idea they would do that kind of testing before hiring,” he recalled. “At the hospital, they told me the company insisted on it.”

What the affiliate did was illegal. Article 8, Item 1 of the AIDS Prevention Act, enacted to protect the rights of HIV-positive individuals, states that those performing physical examinations may not notify anyone but the examinee of the test results. Those who violate the law are subject to up to one year in prison and a fine of up to 3 million won (US$2,770).

On the advice of a lawyer, Jeong sent an anonymous statement of opinion to the hospital. The hospital was unaware that it was even illegal to tell a company the results of an individual’s physical screening. In the end, the affiliate conducted all examinations except for an HIV screening. Jeong passed, but his worries remain.

“Even if I make it through one year, there are going to be workplace screenings,” he said. “Every time we have one, I’m going to have to worry about whether they’re going to find out I’m infected.”

HIV-positive people are demanding guarantees on their right to work ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1. The HIV-positive population in South Korea nearly doubled between 2006 and 2011, rising from 4,500 to 8,500. More than half of these people are in their twenties or thirties - right when they are finding employment. But many are giving up on the possibility of a career and resigning themselves to poverty.

Physical screenings for new and existing employees are the major stumbling block. HIV status is not part of the general health screening data that employers have to provide for their workers. It is typically included in hiring tests and workplace screenings only when the company demands it or the hospital offers it as a courtesy. Occasionally, this means that people find out about infections they never knew they had, and end up being summarily ejected from the company.

While most of the public view AIDS as a fearsome contagion, its actual transmissibility is very low. The rate of transmission is on the order of one in a thousand even for unprotected intercourse. And with an 82.2% survival rate, HIV-positive individuals can work freely with regular treatment.

“As treatment methods have developed, other countries have come to see AIDS as a manageable chronic ailment like high blood pressure or hepatitis,” explained Inha University Medical School professor Lee Hun-jae. “Its medical severity is roughly equivalent to diabetes. It poses no problem to working at a company.”

According to Lee, company health procedures that “weed out” HIV-positive employees who are healthy enough to work are merely creating discrimination and stigma.

“A,” 46, who until just a few years ago was working at a mid-sized company in Seoul, was summoned to human resources repeatedly after a regular workplace screening. Having learned that A was HIV-positive, the team said that the health screening “turned up something that is not suited to our work.”

A quit, but had no family to depend on. Treatment costs come out A’s basic livelihood security benefits. The drugs are free for those on basic livelihood security, but once a person starts receiving benefits, the chance of returning to work slips farther out of reach.

The number of HIV-positive beneficiaries like A rose from 962 to 1,210 in the three years between 2008 and 2011. They represent more than 14% of South Korea‘s HIV-population. For the past three years, the government’s annual budget to support HIV-positive individuals in finding jobs has remained stuck at 80 million won (US$73,800).

Gwon Mi-ran of Nanuri Plus, an AIDS human rights advocacy group, said people with HIV end up stuck in a vicious cycle as long as society does not guarantee them the opportunity to work.

“Guaranteeing the right to work is a minimal requirement for HIV-positive people whose lives and finances have hit rock bottom because of the social stigma,” she added.

via TheHankyoreh

Upsetting 

Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Gay Strategist, Deserves Better | The New Civil Rights Movement →

In 1956, Bayard Rustin was hidden in the trunk of a car and snuck out of Montgomery during the Montgomery Bus Boycott because it was feared that having an openly-gay man as an advisor would discredit the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King and the other leaders of the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

In ‎1983, Congressman Walter Fauntroy, one the organizers of a Washington March marking the 20th anniversary of the iconic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, (where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech,) attempted to prevent representatives from gay and lesbian rights groups from speaking, thereby insulting the memory of the openly-gay Bayard Rustin, the architect of the original 1963 civil rights march…

It’s time we bring Bayard’s legacy out of the closet and into the national spotlight. READ MORE

HIV Positive Man Banned From Touching Doorknobs At Work | Addicting Info →

While discrimination against people with HIV is certainly nothing new, the level of harassment suffered by James White of Detroit, Michigan brings back memories of the darkest days of the initial outbreak. Abetted by President Reagan’s now infamous silence and complete inaction, ill-informed rumors about HIV spread as quickly as the disease itself. Millions of lost lives and decades later, we’re still dealing with the fallout from that total failure in leadership. Read More