Antoine NJ Gay rights groups, family call for independent investigation
By Antoine Craigwell
(Friday, Jul 23, 2010) – Amid calls for an independent investigation from local civil rights groups and family, to the FBI taking an interest into the shooting death on Friday, Jul 16 of DeFarra Gaymon in the Branch Brook Park in Newark, NJ, conflicting accounts of the circumstances surrounding him continue to swirl.
DeFarra Gaymon-shot in the chest in Branch Brook Park, NJ
When Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert D. Laurino came forward with a statement, it seemed at odds with already published reports and hinted at efforts by the prosecutor’s office and the police to confuse what really happened. The prosecutor’s statement, which many in the community questioned as deliberately delayed, painted a picture of the 29-year-old officer under threat and in mortal fear for his life from an unarmed Black man, to the point that he had to receive medical treatment for trauma. The prosecutor’s statement mentioned that Gaymon purportedly propositioned the officer for sexual favors while at the same time, he was performing an act of lewdness, a euphemism for public masturbation.
According to previously published reports, 48-year-old Gaymon, a father of four children, a husband, and the CEO of the Atlanta Credit Union had traveled to Newark to attend his high school’s 30-year reunion. But, according to the statement issued by the county prosecutor, two undercover officers were in pursuit of suspected gang members when one of the officers dropped his handcuffs. When the officer stopped to retrieve it, bending over, he was approached by Gaymon who propositioned him. The statement said that the officer identified himself and advised Gaymon that he was under arrest, at which point Gaymon struck the officer, knocking him to the ground and ran. The officer ran after Gaymon and when he was cornered close to a nearby pond, the statement said, Gaymon reportedly attempted to grab at the officer’s weapon and at which point, the officer reacted by grabbing his weapon and firing directly at Gaymon, hitting him in his chest. One newspaper report said that Gaymon reached behind him, which caused the officer to fear and fired his gun.
A Newark city resident familiar with the park and who up until he was asked about the shooting had no knowledge of it, said that the area of Branch Brook Park where men cruise for sex include male prostitutes and teenagers from the nearby Berringer High School. It is unusual, he said, for members of any of the known gangs, MS13, Bloods, or Nietas, who are anti-gay, to be seen in that section of the park. Instead, he added, the gangs usually frequent the northern section of the park.
This resident, 37-year-old Black man, who requested anonymity because he works for the city and is not authorized to speak, disputed claims that law enforcement officers are frequently undercover in the park. He said that state troopers and county officers drive through the park on one of its thoroughfares infrequently, and law enforcement officers never venture to any of the off-the-beaten paths through the bushes. He added that in the event of any police activity, everyone in the bushes would have scattered, and as such there would be no witnesses to what transpired.
Map of Branh Brook Park area
Al Cunningham III, another Newark city resident and a program manager with Newark-based Liberation in Truth, questioned whether this was part of a sting operation in this section of Branch Brook Park, as considerably more sexual activity occurs in another park, Bellville Park, which is adjacent and to the north.
As if to confirm mistrust, Garden State Equality (GSE) and Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey (GRAANJ), the state’s civil rights organization dedicated to gender non-conforming people, sent a letter to the Essex Country Sheriff Armando Fontura and Laurino calling for a full and independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Graymon’s shooting death. In the letter, Steven Goldstein, GSE chair, and co-signer Barbara Siperstein, president, NJ Stonewall Democrats, said “First, we ask you immediately to inform us and our colleagues in Newark – including the LGBTQ Advisory Committee, City of Newark, and the Newark Pride Alliance – whether the killing was part of a sting operation in the park targeting gay men specifically or LGBT people specifically. If so, we ask you to cease and desist such operations in Branch Brook Park, and any others like it in Essex County.”
Goldstein said, “Let’s look at common sense here, how an unarmed man caught with his pants down possibly can cause any level of violence to result in him being shot? This is outrageous and preposterous and we will not stand for it.”
Referring to the letter’s call for the prosecutor’s office to release documents, Siperstein said that there are several unanswered questions about this tragedy.
Steven Goldstein, chair Garden State Equality
“There needs to be responsibility and transparency to the community. As a representative of GRAANJ, we are extremely concerned that New Jersey’s laws against discrimination are not being enforced by the government and law enforcement agencies. We need to know is, if there is a pattern or if there is profiling? I don’t know the demographic make up of the people who frequent the park, my concern is that the number of ‘don’t knows’ need to be answered and it is important that the Essex county police or who ever is responsible be transparent,” she said.
In a comment posted his Facebook page, Cunningham said he is greatly saddened by this tragedy, “which seems likely to have occurred as a result of Mr. Gaymon’s panic in anticipation of the public notoriety his arrest might create (in many places, such arrests are reported daily in the newspaper). Ironically, that notoriety is unlikely here, despite the very troubling report in this article that more than 200 people have been arrested in this area in the past 18 months,” which he said, is an unreported public health issue.
But, Keith Griffith, founder of Cruisingforsex.com, a Website that provides information to places where people, mostly men, could meet other men for sex in public places, in a comment on Cunningham’s Facebook page, said that so many emotions come to mind reading this article.
“[It is] sad because while it is rare that a cop kills a cruiser, thousands of these men find their lives forever ruined, and for what? Stopping off in some bushes for consensual sex with another adult. I’d love to see some stats about the number of straights [heterosexuals] arrested in Newark for similar ‘crimes’. [It is] sad that now this otherwise successful citizen who probably gave back so much to those around him is dead. And for what? A cop felt threatened enough to shoot an unarmed man with a mortal blow. Certainly nothing new about police shooting the unarmed, but then again it rarely happens in this kind of situation. [It is] sad because this gentleman was so afraid of how this chance encounter would mess up his life, he felt he had to challenge a cop. I suspect he’d been hiding this side of his life for decades and now it has literally killed him,” Griffith said.
He asked: who wins in all this and who in Newark feels safer because of this? He continued, “In a town where violent crime is hardly unknown, it is especially shocking to realize the police have apparently been wasting resources monitoring this park to protect Newark from those scary men who cruise for sex in the bushes.”
But a blog Son of Baldwin, “The Price of the Ticket” written by Robert Jones, Jr., suggested that as Gaymon posed an imminent threat to an undercover police officer, the only recourse was to shoot him. It pointed to the irony of Gaymon’s name and the photographs associated with him, that the possibility of his being gay was only the icing on the cake.
“Yet, he was married with four children. It makes perfect sense to me. He could have been bisexual or had some sort of arrangement with his wife; but somehow, I doubt it. More likely, the successful CEO simply knew the score: America demands the heterosexuality of its citizenry and one must exhibit that quality no matter how peculiar, inauthentic, self-deceptive or self-destructive,” Jones said.
“Like every other vice in America, the hetero-coercion manifests itself tenfold in the black community, as does the mania to accommodate it. And perhaps, if the undercover officer’s story is true, it was that mania, that pathological need to be perceived as a “man” in the eyes of his tribe, that desire to not “disappoint,” that drove Mr. Gaymon, at the risk of life and limb, to attack someone he seemingly knew to be a police officer, someone he apparently knew was armed, someone he knew, since he lived in America, would, if even slightly provoked, shoot first and ask questions later.
“I imagine that the thought of his sexuality being exposed was probably, for him, a fate worse than death. And so he retreated from the officer, believing, possibly, that he was also retreating from the threat of exposure. And maybe when he determined that he could no longer run, that he had no other place to hide, he did what patriarchal masculinity foolishly leads men to do when faced with the inevitable: charge headlong into the fray. Or fall on their swords,” Jones said.
Quoting a member of Gaymon’s family, “We know that the police killed an innocent man, with no history of or disposition towards violence”, Jones continued that they might not know how they contributed to the (alleged) destruction of his innocence that evening with their invisible, omnipresent expectations, judgmental eyes and objurgate tongues; they couldn’t know.
“Because it’s likely that they, like everyone else I suppose, view the world through a very narrow and distorted lens. It could be that their particular vision is, to them, all that there was, all that there is, all that there will ever be and, most importantly, all that there ever should be, a vision that Gaymon willingly sacrificed himself for. Or it could just be that it was Tuesday and the police officer felt like killing a nigger/faggot. Both scenarios are equally plausible. This is America, after all. Someone always has to pay the price of the ticket,” said Jones.
Deborah Jacobs, executive director, ACLU-NJ
In a press release, Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the ACLU, said that along with filing a request with the County Prosecutor’s office for release of public information, the organization wondered if the proper procedure was followed, which included forwarding this case to the Attorney General’s Shooting Response Team for an independent review and investigation. As part of advocating for best practices in policing, the ACLU-NJ filed a request with the Essex County Sheriff’s Office asking for radio transmissions, use-of-force reports, arrest reports and other data that could shed light on the shooting.
The release stated: “Many questions still remain. Inconsistent reports in media have painted an unclear picture of what actually happened at the scene. Additionally, the ACLU-NJ has not learned whether Essex County reported the shooting to the Attorney General’s office immediately, as required by policy, [n]or how soon after the incident the officer was questioned or discussed the incident with his supervisors.”
“Considering the seriousness of the incident, and many unanswered questions, this investigation demands the legitimacy that only an external review can provide. The public’s confidence in this investigation depend on whether the professionals undertaking it operate independently, outside of the county structure,” Jacobs said in the release.
Antoine Signals victory against homophobic silencing in civil society
By Antoine Craigwell
(New York, NY) – The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) was on Monday, Jul 19 granted consultative status in a vote by the full United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The vote for IGLHRC, by a US-led resolution, is the tenth organization working primarily for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) human rights to gain such status at the United Nations.
According to a press release issued by IGLHRC, Cary Alan Johnson, IGLHRC executive director, said, “Today’s decision is an affirmation that the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people have a place at the United Nations as part of a vital civil society community. The clear message here is that these voices should not be silenced and that human rights cannot be denied on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
With 23 in favor, 13 against, 13 abstentions and, five absences, the resolution passed. Notably, among the Caribbean nations, Bahamas and St. Kitts & Nevis voted against the resolution, with St. Lucia abstaining. Among the African countries, Egypt, Namibia, Niger, and Zambia were against, with Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Mozambique, and Rawanda abstaining, and with Cameroon, Congo and Guinea-Bissau absent from the vote. Venezuela was the only South American country on the ECOSOC to vote against, and surprisingly, given the advances in LGBT rights, India abstained from the vote.
The press release stated that this favorable vote comes after a lengthy three-year application process where, despite providing all the requirements, IGLHRC faced deferrals, homophobic questioning, and procedural roadblocks in the ECOSOC non-governmental organization (NGO) committee. The vote upended a “no action” vote in the NGO-committee, which seemed to be heading in the direction of a precedent that labeled organizations considered controversial from an opportunity to have their applications voted on, even after submitting to the required reviews. The IGLHRC vote followed a letter to all UN member states signed by more than 200 NGOs from 59 countries, which called for fair and non-discriminatory treatment of LGBT voices in the international arena.
Frank Mugisha, Chairperson of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), one of 13 NGOs from Uganda to publicly call for IGLHRC to be accredited, said, “As human rights defenders and LGBT people living in countries where homophobic discrimination is a daily reality, we celebrate the accreditation of IGLHRC at the UN. IGLHRC’s access to the UN means that we too will have greater access to international human-rights mechanisms that can prove invaluable to LGBT people’s lives.”
Cary Alan Johnson, executive director, IGLHRC
The IGLHRC press release announcing the favorable vote said that the United States supported the organization’s application, and called for a vote in both the NGO Committee and ECOSOC. The U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, publicly demonstrated her support for IGLHRC’s application. Also, 14 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and four Senators sent letters of support for IGLHRC to all member states, which included Senator John Kerry (D-MA), Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA), Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
On the UN Website, details of the discussion preceding the vote, the U.S. representative said of IGLHRC that “by promoting the implementation of human rights treaties, it had already made a significant contribution to supporting the United Nations Charter and the work of the Council. It had been a leader in the battle against HIV/AIDS, and had been praised by both the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).”
The unnamed U.S. representative said that the Committee on Non-governmental Organizations had refused for more than a decade to grant consultative status to any lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender civil society group, although the Council had acted to grant consultative status to seven such organizations whose applications had been rejected. Those seven Council decisions, she added, had firmly established the principle that a non-governmental organization’s support for gay and lesbian rights should not be a disqualifying factor in the NGO Committee’s decisions to grant consultative status. Unfortunately, she said, the Committee continued to act in complete disregard of the repeated guidance it had received from its parent body on the matter, and in denial of the established standards.
The vote in favor of IGLHRC means that the international LGBT human rights organization would now be able to participate more officially by attending meetings, submitting statements, and collaborating with the UN and governments on human rights in the international arena. The press release stated that IGLHRC, with a long history pushing for the rights of all people regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity, advocated for sexual rights to be included in the official discussions at the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. In 2001, the organization spoke at the first UN General Assembly meeting on HIV and AIDS, and in recent years has been part of a collaboration between NGOs and supportive States that resulted in the groundbreaking 2008 UN General Assembly Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, which was signed by 67 member states.
Toni Reis, president of the Brazilian LGBT group, Associação Brasileira de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis e Transexuais (ABGLT), which received consultative status in 2009, said, “We celebrate this decision. It is crucial that LGBT NGOs have the opportunity to participate in the UN human rights debate – though in future, organizations should receive full and fair reviews before the NGO Committee itself.”
Broken out, the votes were as follows: In favor: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Malta, Norway, Peru, Poland, Rep. of Korea, Slovenia, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay. Those against included Bangladesh, China, Comoros, Egypt, Malaysia, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Pakistan, Russian Fed., Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Zambia. Countries abstaining from the vote were Bahamas, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, India, Mauritius, Mongolia, Mozambique, Philippines, Rep. of Moldova, Rwanda, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Turkey, and Ukraine. The five countries that were absent for the vote included Cameroon, Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, and Saint Lucia.
Antoine Following release of National HIV/AIDS Strategy
By Antoine Craigwell
(Wednesday, July 14, 2010) – Paul Kawata, executive director of the National Minority AIDS Council, posted on the social networking site, Facebook, a letter signed by 180 national and community organizations at the forefront of the fight against HIV and AIDS. This letter was in response to the announcement and release of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) yesterday.
The text of the letter below:
Honorable Barack H. Obama
President, United States Of America
The White House
Washington, DC
Dear President Obama,
On behalf of the180 national and community based organizations (see list below) on the front lines of this epidemic, thank you for your leadership and commitment to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Each of us stands here in the footprints of so many heroes we’ve lost to HIV/AIDS. Our friends who fought so hard in the early days could probably never imagine a President holding a reception at the White House to honor the HIV/AIDS community. Most would have loved to be part of this event. We miss them and will never forget the sacrifices they made so that we can be here today.
In the first 18 months of your administration the travel ban on those living with HIV was removed, restrictions on the use of federal funds to support needle exchange were removed, the Ryan White Care Act was reauthorized, and $30.4 Million was set aside as part of the Prevention and Wellness Fund for HIV/AIDS Prevention. However, we’ve also had our challenges in ensuring adequate funding for PEPFAR and other international HIV/AIDS initiatives.
As you implement the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS), we ask that the first thing you address is the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) funding crisis. We appreciate the $25 million to see us through September 30, 2010. We are concerned that is not a long-term solution and will only get us through a limited period. As of Jul 8, 2010, 2,291 individuals are on waiting lists. This number does not include individuals in states that don’t keep waiting lists, have significantly reduced the drug formulary, or have significantly changed the income eligibility levels. On Jul 1, Georgia became the 12th state to close enrollment and start a waiting list. Ohio changed its income eligibility levels so that more then 1,000 HIV/AIDS patients will lose their benefits. New Jersey also changed its income eligibility levels so that 947 HIV/AIDS patients will lose their benefits. Without an immediate solution, other states will follow.
As you consider solutions, please make it [funding for ADAP] multi-year funding through 2014, support states that don’t keep waiting lists but have closed enrollment or that are on the brink of a waiting list, ensure that all the necessary drugs are covered, and [the] integration of a permanent solution into health care reform.
We look forward to the reviewing the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and the opportunity to work with your administration to ensure its implementation across the country. Thank you for your support and leadership.
Sincerely,
2 God B The Glory, Inc A Brave New Day A Family Affair
ACT UP Philadelphia Action for a Better Community Advocates For Youth
African American Hispanic Health Education Resource Center
AID For AIDS Nevada AIDS Alabama
AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families
AIDS Care Services, Inc. AIDS Community Research Initiative of America
AIDS Foundation of Chicago AIDS/HIV Services Group (ASG)
The AIDS LIFE Campaign AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin
AIDS Project of Central Iowa AIDS Resources of Rural Texas
AIDS Treatment Activists Coalition (ATAC) Albany Damien Center
Amanda Beck-Myers Ananias Anxiety Disorders Association of America
Asian Media Access Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum
Asian & Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS
Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center
Aspirations Wholistic Tutorial Services Baton Rouge AIDS Society
Bienestar Human Services Black AIDS Institute
The Black Women’s Health Imperative Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS
Paul Browne CAEAR Coalition CALOR
Camden NJ Area Health Education Center (AHEC)
Camillus Health Concern, Inc. CARES CareSouth Carolina
Cascade AIDS Project Central City AIDS Network, Inc.
Central Illinois FRIENDS of People with AIDS
CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers
William H. Chastang Consumer Advocate/Outreach Coordinator
Christie’s Place, Inc. Citywide Project/Citywide Ministries
Coai, Inc. Community Access National Network
Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP)
Community Information Center, Inc. Comprehensive Health Education
Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition DeKalb Prevention Alliance, Inc
Desert AIDS Project Gregory W. Edwards, EdD
Eternal Hope Community Development Corporation, Inc.
Family Heath & AIDS Care Services International Family Health Project
Family Planning Association of Puerto Rico F.L.A.S., INC.
Fort Worth Northside Community Health Center, Inc.
Greater Love Tabernacle Gregory House Programs GROUP Ministries, Inc.
Harlem United Community AIDS Center Harmony House, Inc.
Hawaii Island HIV/AIDS Foundation Hermanas de Luna y Sol HEROES
HIV/AIDS Alliance for Region Two, Inc.
HIV/AIDS Services for African Americans in Alaska HIV-AIDS UETS
HIV Care Program HIVictorious, Inc.
HIV Planning Council Santa Clara County Housing Works
Illinois Alliance for Sound AIDS Policy Iris House
Johns Hopkins Local Performance Site
PA/MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center
Monica Johnson, NMAC Board Member
Lambda Legal Lark Lands, M.S., Ph.D. H.O.P.E.
The LaStraw, Inc. Latino Commission on AIDS
Latino Community Services
Helen Lemay, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita, Stony Brook University
Liberty Research Group
Don Little, MPH, Former Chair of the Oklahoma Native American AIDS Coalition
The Living Room LMPHW Specialty Clinic
Love Heals, the Alison Gertz Foundation for AIDS Education
Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center
Kentucky HIV/AIDS Advocacy Action Group
Michigan Positive Action Coalition (MI-POZ)
Minnesota AIDS Project
Minority AIDS Council of Orangeburg, Bamberg, and Calhoun Council, Inc.
Missoula AIDS Council M OCHA Center Inc.
Multicultural AIDS Coalition, Inc. he NAMES Project/AIDS Memorial Quilt
Native Health National African American Drug Policy Coalition, Inc.
National AIDS Fund National AIDS Housing Coalition
National Association of People with AIDS
National Association of Social Workers
National Latino AIDS Action Network National Minority AIDS Council
National Native American AIDS Prevention Center
NCLR/CSULB Center for Latino Community Health, Evaluation and Leadership Training
New Jersey Women and AIDS Network New Destiny Recovery Ministry
New York AIDS Coalition New York City AIDS Housing Network
Nightsweats & T-cells, Co North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition
Oklahoma City Indian Clinic One Heartland One Love Project
Open Door Clinic Leonardo Ortega, NMAC Board Member
David G. Ostrow, MD, PhD Partnership Project
Choyce Perkinds, Advocate For AAHHERC Positive Efforts, Inc
Project Aware at Stanley Street Treatment & Resources
PROCEED, Inc. Project HANDLE, Neighborhood House Project Lazarus
Project Link of South Florida, Inc. Proyecto SOL Filadelfia
Puerto Rico Community Network for Clinical Research on AIDS (PR CoNCRA)
Andre Weatherby Rawls Recovery 2000, Inc. Redemption Outreach Intl
Regional AIDS Project
Genevieve Rohan, FNP-C, AAHIVMS and Tegest Hailu, MD, AAHIVMS, Hailu/Rohan Family Practice
SAYFSM Vanessa Sasso, Seattle HIV/AIDS Planning Council
Shanti
S.H.A.P.E. (Stop HIV/AIDS and Addiction through Prevention and Education)
Carlton R. Smith, Baltimore Black Pride, Inc. Founder, Churches United Against AIDS; Board chair
South Carolina Campaign to End AIDS (SC-C2EA)
South Central Educational Development, Inc. South Jersey AIDS Alliance
South LA Access Center Southern AIDS Coalition (SAC)
Southwest Louisiana AHEC Stanley Street Treatment & Resources
Street Works St. Luke AME Church/ Treat Me Right Inc.
Suburban HIV/AIDS Consortium (SHAC)
TACTS-THE Association of Clinical Trials Services
Tampa-Hillsborough Action Plan C. Taylor
Ti-chee Native AIDS Prevention Project Rose Todd-Stanford
Total Health Awareness Team Treat Me Right Inc.
Treatment Access Expansion Project Treatment Action Group
Two Spirit Society of Denver U Can Do It 2!
Evelyn Ullah, NMAC Board Member Us Helping Us
Valley AIDS Information Network Inc.
Vermont CARES
VillageCare
Volunteers of America Greater Baton Rouge
West County Health Centers, Inc. Who’s Positive Willis Center
The Women’s Collective Women’s Health Center
Women Together For Change Women Watch Afrika, Inc
Antoine An autobiography with online chat rooms
By Antoine Craigwell
(New York, NY) – Cybersex: The Play, morphed from a 10-year-old seed, as an idea in the mind of Jason Duvall Hunter, to finally grow into and become a tree that bloomed and bore fruit with a performance at the New York City Producer’s Club.
At the Producer’s Club, last Saturday night, Jul 10, more than 60 people gathered to share in Hunter’s dream of producing a play. A real estate broker by day and the play’s writer, producer, director, and sound and lighting master, Hunter was finally able to bring to the stage his vision of melding his story with current technology: exploring his sexual abuse as a child with his search for love and affection in Internet chat rooms.
“I’ve thought of this play for over 10 years and with the rise of the Internet and computers, this is also autobiographical where I explore sexual identity and conflict. It’s also an opportunity for me to create this using my own life experience as a template,” Hunter said.
CyberSex: The Play is an adult rated play, which describes in graphic detail the sexual escapades that people engage in online chat rooms. It features a cast and crew of 13, and consists of people of different racial backgrounds, who, according to Hunter, were chosen from an open casting call and is intended as a reflection of diversity in society.
The play, with Harmonica Sunbeam as the Online Host, began with introductions into Internet Chat Rooms by the character “YouMe69n” (a handle used by several of the characters), played and with dance sequences choreographed by FranCisco Vegas – in drag, Michael Smith, Oscar Salazar, Nick Dorvill, and DJ Baker as “Shine2Fine”. Using different chat room handles, the characters include “Boy1683n” played by Delvon Johnson, “ShavedFratboy” played by Yvette Quintero, “Kenny1744n” played by Tristan Sample, “Tyboy1215n” by Nemian Quaid, and “LindaSue49n” by Unique Mills. The play devolves into the story of David, played by Alton Alburo, dressed simply in a black T-shirt and pants, who interleaves into the play a monologue describing his seduction and rape when he was 8-years old by his older cousin. It is in Internet chat rooms that David turns to find his sexuality identity, to determine if he is gay, straight, or bisexual. And, it is by entering into the Chat Rooms, in six different scenes, that he encounters people who populate these Internet sites, and are not who they say or claim to be; that in fact, many are hiding their true selves behind masks and various costumes with attitudes and behaviors. He realizes that as he searches for meaning in the chat rooms, he is the only one being truthful.
FranCisco Vegas as "YouMe69n"
David reveals toward the end that since he was raped, his sexual development has been stunted: although he has participated in several different sexual acts, including having a girlfriend who turned out to be a lesbian, and with many different people, the trauma of the rape has prevented him from ever achieving an orgasm.
“I want people to come away from seeing this play with perceptions of themselves, to see in the people they know, the costumes and the masks people wear, and the lies people tell, especially the covers people use as they interact with each other online. This is basically an exploration of sexuality and sexual identity, and is a peeling away of the layers to reveal true selves,” said Hunter.
Sharing in the play’s production, associate producer Nathan James, a writer and advocate for and of the LGBT community, said that working with Hunter and Bill Johnson, the co-director, was a privilege to create a performance that is at once both provocative and groundbreaking.
Scene from the sex chat room
“It is provocative in that it’s a play that steps outside the boundaries of convention and engages the audience with intriguing concepts regarding our sexual identity and some of our darker life experiences,” James said.
Bill Johnson, 14 years as a director, who participated in productions such as “Colored Museum” by George C. Wolf, and “Bus Stop” by William Inge, said that he was glad to have been given the opportunity to give voice to Hunter’s personal story. He said he took the writer’s words to ensure that the story is told through direction, lighting, costumes, and props, which were minimal.
DJ Baker as "Shine2Fine"
“It’s a good story. Unfortunately, molestation is too much part of life. Too many men have been molested and haven’t dealt with it, and don’t know how to deal with it. This play addresses this issue and I hope it opens some lines of communication,” the co-director said.
Hunter, who has been working on producing the play since January, had a table reading in February this year and depending on the success of the play, plans to pursue an extended run for about three or four weeks in the Fall at a mid-level theater, such as the Helen Mills Theater or a theater with about 140 seats. His vision for the play’s future is that it would attract sponsors and with a bigger budget go off-Broadway or even ambitiously, to Broadway itself.
Antoine (Tuesday, July 13, 2010) – Finally, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) as a way of addressing the rising numbers of people in the U.S. who are HIV positive and living with AIDS.
President Obama meets with Jeffery Crowley, ONAP director.
Announcing the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, coordinated by the Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP), the president said in a letter, “Thirty years ago, the first cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) garnered the world’s attention. Since then, over 575,000 Americans have lost their lives to AIDS and more than 56,000 people in the United States become infected with HIV each year. Currently, there are more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV. Moreover, almost half of all Americans know someone living with HIV.”
The country is at a crossroads with HIV as a domestic epidemic demanding a renewed commitment, increased public attention, and leadership, the president said. He said he challenged the Office of National AIDS Policy at the start of his administration to develop a national strategy with three goals: reducing the number of people who become infected with HIV; increasing access to care and improving health outcomes for people living with HIV; and, reducing HIV-related health disparities.
“To accomplish these goals, we must undertake a more coordinated national response to the epidemic. The Federal government can’t do this alone, nor should it. Success will require the commitment of governments at all levels, businesses, faith communities, philanthropy, the scientific and medical communities, educational institutions, people living with HIV, and others,” Obama said.
ONAP in its vision statement said: “The United States will become a place where new HIV infections are rare and when they do occur, every person, regardless of age, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or socio-economic circumstance, will have unfettered access to high quality, life-extending care, free from stigma and discrimination.”
But leaders at the forefront in the fight against AIDS, especially in the Black community, suggest that the Strategy does not go far enough.
In a press release, Phill Wilson, president and chief executive officer of the Black AIDS Institute, on his organization’s Website said that the National AIDS Strategy represents a new day in the country’s nearly three-decade-long struggle against AIDS.
Phill Wilson, president and CEO, Black AIDS Institute
“For the first time, we finally have a national plan in place to guide our fight against the epidemic and to hold decision-makers accountable for results,” said Wilson.
Wilson pointed to the hypocrisy in the U.S. AIDS policy toward other countries, which imposed as a condition to receive AIDS assistance that they were required to have a national AIDS strategy, but America never had one.
“With no plan in place to mandate coordination between different government agencies or to ensure accountability, it is hardly surprising that we have an HIV/AIDS epidemic 40% worse than previously believed, with 1 in 5 Americans infected with HIV don’t know they have the disease, half or more of people diagnosed with HIV are not receiving regular medical care, and HIV rates in some communities worst than those found in some of the poorest countries on the planet,” Wilson said.
The new strategy provides a promising opportunity for Americans to get real about the shortcomings in its national response to the epidemic, he said. At a time when AIDS deaths are largely preventable, the government has provided only minimal leadership in making knowledge of HIV serostatus an essential social norm in the most heavily affected communities. And even though the face of AIDS in America is typically Black or brown, most people with HIV are forced to seek medical care from health providers who neither look like them nor understand the challenges they face. The new strategy provides a blueprint for changing some of these realities, and it is an opportunity we must energetically grasp, Wilson said in the release.
But, he said that while he praises the president for placing Black America front and center in his national HIV/AIDS strategy, AIDS in America today is a Black disease, which accounts for about 13% of the national population, with Black people making up half of all new HIV diagnoses. The AIDS death rate among Black males is eight times higher than for white males, while Black women are 19 times as likely to die as whites, he said.
Pointing to the limitations of the AIDS Stratefy, Wilson said, “If the new AIDS strategy is to succeed, it has to work for Black people. In reporting results, the Obama administration needs specifically to report outcomes for Black people. Only if prevention and treatment programs work for Black America will we win our national fight against AIDS. Unfortunately, the new strategy does not sufficiently address the issue of resources. Already, we are seeing many AIDS drug assistance programs impose caps or waiting lists for life-saving drugs. There are over 3000 people on ADAP waiting lists. This month, the President authorized a one-time funding increase for ADAP of $25 million, but this amount, while welcome, represents only about 7% of amounts needed this year alone to ensure the program’s continued solvency.
“At a time when we are largely losing the fight to prevent new infections, prevention programs currently account for only 3% of federal AIDS spending. To put available prevention weapons to effective use, experts estimate that annual prevention spending needs to increase from $750 million to $1.3 billion for at least each of the next five years. This new strategy offers a sound, evidence-based approach to better results, but it will be worth little more than the paper it is written on if we don’t follow through with essential resources.
“In difficult economic times, it is often necessary to make painful choices. As a country, though, we need to transition from AIDS “spending” to AIDS “investments.” By investing in cost-effective AIDS programs, we are investing in America’s families and helping young people remain productive contributors to society for future decades.”
Paul Kawata, executive director of the Washington-DC based National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC), in a statement said, “This is a historic time on many fronts. On the one hand, President Obama has made history today by being the first President ever to create a truly national strategy to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The ideas contained in this plan are aggressive and would certainly go a long way toward combating what continues to be one of our nation’s most troubling public health emergencies.”
Kawata said he purposefully used the word ‘plan’ to demonstrate that without the funds to carry out the president’s ambitious agenda, it significantly short of a strategy.
“The blueprint is most certainly there,” he said. “But now our collective attention must shift to resources.”
He said that while the president can rightly lay claim to a historic and much-needed moment in the HIV/AIDS movement, history continues to be made each day as more people living with HIV/AIDS continue to join the ranks of those waiting to receive life-saving medicines. Tragically, this has become an issue of resources as well—an issue that has become an all-too familiar refrain in the battle against this disease, he added.
“We must look at this plan as a solid first step in achieving our ultimate goal: eradicating HIV/AIDS. Now the conversation must turn to implementation—and how we fund such an audacious goal. To ignore the difficult topic of HIV/AIDS funding would be tantamount to placing the president’s strategy in a shredder,” said Kawata.
But, Jeffery Crowley, ONAP director, in a statement posted on the ONAP Website said, “Today, Secretary Sebelius also announced that $30 million of the Affordable Care Act’s Prevention Fund will be dedicated to the implementation of the NHAS. This funding will support the development of combination prevention interventions. It will also support improved surveillance, expanded, and targeted testing, and other activities.”
Among the many items the Strategy calls for is a three-step process of reducing HIV-related disparities and health inequities, which include reducing HIV-related mortality in communities at high risk for HIV infection, adopting community-level approach to reduce HIV infection in high-risk communities, and reducing stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV.
The Strategy said that regarding the third step of this process, in the earliest days of the HIV epidemic, fear, ignorance, and denial led to harsh, ugly treatment of people living with the disease, and some Americans even called for forced quarantine of all people living with HIV. Although such extreme measures never occurred, the stigma and discrimination faced by people living with HIV was often extremely high. Even today, some people living with HIV still face discrimination in many areas of life including employment, housing, provision of health care services, and access to public accommodations. This undermines efforts to encourage all people to learn their HIV status, and it makes it harder for people to disclose their HIV status to their medical providers, their sex partners, and even clergy, and others from whom they may seek understanding and support.
Time and again, an essential element of what has caused social attitudes to change has been when the public sees and interacts with people who are openly living with HIV. For decades, community organizations have operated speaker’s bureaus where people with HIV go into schools, businesses, and churches to talk about living with HIV. In the 1990s, both major political parties had memorable keynote speakers at their presidential nominating conventions that were living with HIV.
With Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and other civil rights laws commemorating their 20th anniversary this year, these laws have proven to be vital for the protection of people with disabilities including HIV. The Strategy calls for a greater commitment to civil rights enforcement and that to be free of discrimination based on HIV status is both a human and a civil right, “We know that many people feel shame and embarrassment when they learn their HIV status. And, there is too much social stigma that seeks to assign blame to people who acquire HIV. Encouraging more individuals to disclose their HIV status directly lessens the stigma associated with HIV. As we promote disclosure, however, we must also ensure that we are protecting people who are openly living with HIV.”
Working to end the stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV is a critical component of curtailing the epidemic, said the Strategy document. People at high risk for HIV cannot be expected to, nor will they seek testing or treatment services if they fear that it would result in adverse consequences of discrimination. HIV stigma has been shown to be a barrier to HIV testing and people living with HIV who experience more stigma have poorer physical and mental health and are more likely to miss doses of their medication. An important step is to ensure that laws and policies support current understanding of best public health practices for preventing and treating HIV.
“While we understand the intent behind such laws, they may not have the desired effect and they may make people less willing to disclose their status by making people feel at even greater risk of discrimination. In some cases, it may be appropriate for legislators to reconsider whether existing laws continue to further the public interest and public health. In many instances, the continued existence and enforcement of these types of laws run counter to scientific evidence about routes of HIV transmission and may undermine the public health goals of promoting HIV screening and treatment,” the Strategy document said.
To reduce stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV, the Strategy document recommends that communities be engaged to affirm support for people living with HIV: Faith communities, businesses, schools, community-based organizations, social gathering sites, and all types of media outlets should take responsibility for affirming nonjudgmental support for people living with HIV and high-risk communities. The promotion of public leadership of people living with HIV: Governments and other institutions (including HIV prevention community planning groups and Ryan White planning councils and consortia) should work with people with AIDS coalitions, HIV services organizations, and other institutions to actively promote public leadership by people living with HIV. The promotion of public health approaches to HIV prevention and care: State legislatures should consider reviewing HIV-specific criminal statutes to ensure that they are consistent with current knowledge of HIV transmission and support public health approaches to preventing and treating HIV. And, strengthening of enforcement of civil rights laws: The Department of Justice and federal agencies must enhance cooperation to facilitate enforcement of federal antidiscrimination laws.
