In the United States, the AIDS crisis is now almost completely within the control of public health management systems. Through global NGOs, we have exported our programs for managing this epidemic, as well as uniquely US approaches to public health, around the world. These public health ideologies downplay or avoid politically sensitive concerns with sexual rights (such as the rights of commercial sex workers), harm reduction (such as drug legalization and needle exchange), and the oppression of racial and sexual minorities (in the form of multi-generational poverty, incarceration, and other structural inequalities.) Increasing infection rates among poor women, rural populations, and young men of color who have sex with men, as well as the inability of many people around the world to access affordable, life-saving treatments, remind us that social violence and structural inequalities are not resolved by the efficient management of the epidemic.

As long as this global health structure remains in place, the AIDS crisis is always still beginning. This event features a film screening of Jean Carlomustos award-winning film Sex Is An Epidemic (2010), followed by an open discussion on how to organize against the AIDS crisis.

Moderator
Robert Sember, member of Ultra-red sound art collective, 2009-2010 Vera List Center Fellow

Participants
Arbert Santana Evisu, member of House of Evisu
Kevin Trimell Jones, Black LGBT Archivists Society of Philadelphia

Presented on occasion of the Vera List Center’s 2009-2011 focus theme “Speculating on Change.” It is also presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Vogue’ology, on view from November 17, 2010 to November 30, 2010.