Tinoco 1

Connie Tinoco Kim Strickland English 1010 25 July 2013 Annotated Bibliography ACLU Press.ACLU Survey Reveals Massive Civil Rights Violations against People with HIV/AIDS. LGBT Basic Rights and Liberties. ACLU Foundation, 13 November 2003. Web. 12 July 2013. As I searched for news articles of possible incidents I came across this webpage. This article lists the summaries of some real life case studies where the person was discriminated against because he or she was HIV positive. The ACLU also presented their results of a survey they gave to 40 community-based AIDS service providers. The numbers of discrimination case studies, they stated, shocked them. It has been 20 years since the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and discrimination is still very high. I wanted to see if discrimination is still a problem and with the survey results and the case studies Im sad to report it still is. ACLU is an active union that works with congress. The survey project was overseen by Senior Staff Attorney, Tamara Lange. These surveys are accurate as these were not opinionated statistics but numerical. These were counted, submitted cases that were taken to court and fought over because of discriminatory issues related to HIV status. Ekstrand, Maria. How does stigma affect HIV prevention and treatment? Fact Sheets. University of California: San Francisco. 1 May 2006. Web. 12 July 2013. San Francisco has been one of the most active cities fighting against HIV/AIDS. The University of California, San Francisco is a medical school and a premier research institution. I wanted to

Tinoco 2

see current studies that are being done to solve the discriminatory problem with HIV status. After reading this article, I did not find it (I found it in the ACLU website); instead I found the current goals and perspective of HIV + persons that this medical institutions has today. Fisher, Mary. I'll Not Go Quietly. New York: Scribner, 1995. Print. This book gives the perspective of an unlikely victim to AIDS/HIV for those who have a nave perspective like me. Its the main reason I read it. Mary Fisher defines herself as a Republican mother and uses this platform to convince others of more traditional political views to start taking actions to fight AIDS. She did not participate in any risky behaviors that the higher majority attended or still attends. Nevertheless, she does not express anger to this community and throughout the book she gracefully asks her audience to do their part to silence the devious whisperings of the general stigma and catalyze effective collaborative effort that will end the disease. King, Martin. "I Have A Dream". Lincoln Memorial. West Potomac Park, Washington D.C. August 1963. Keynote Address. Martin Luther King Jr. was a visionary man much ahead of his time. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, (King). His overall vision for the future of our nation was that laws be fair for the whole public; and most importantly, society be respectful of each others existence. Fighting racial discrimination was one of the steps to a closer general equality. HIV/AIDs discrimination is still very common. HIV/AIDs victims have a harder time obtaining a job once the employer learns they are HIV positive. They can also experience social isolation.

Tinoco 3

For example, in Detroit, a teacher learned that a child was HIV + and told the rest of the students to keep a good distance away. A majority of HIV/AIDs victims are part of the gay community. While reading other books Ive learned that gay people cant stop themselves from being gay, its part of who they are. By denying who they are they hurt their self esteem, psychological state, or physical appearance. In many cases, the more in denial they were, the more they inflicted self pain (e.g. cutting) in secret to release frustration. This situation is similar to the African American community when racial discrimination was high and some were in denial of who they were. This group hated who they were because they were unfairly treated by society. Some tried to use whitening cream to lighten their skin color and changed their physical appearance. Others used substance abuse; such as, alcohol, to cope with their pain. As King states, this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed... Shoving others towards self-inflicted abuse or personally abusing others just to push personal agendas is not why America was created. The Declaration of Independence, another memorable political article, states, ...that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rightsamong these are: life This means all men have the right to have their wellbeing, how else can one live? Shilts, Randy. And the Band Played On. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1987. Print. It is a fact that every different discipline, from art to science, collaborates with one another. This continuous integration shows results. Fortunately, when results lack comfort, people with a keen eye and a high dose of courage (like Randy Shilts) arent afraid to speak up and blow the whistle. This very insightful book connected these different aspects of life from politics, medicine, the social community, and the media during the 1980s AIDS/HIV epidemic. Even though the book

Tinoco 4

is 600 pages, Shilts successfully grabs his readers with passionate and carefully crafted writing that weaves all these connections together by allowing each aspect to tell their story in a narrative voice. It sheds light to which individual and/or what organization let our beloved U.S. down. More importantly, it also explains the details as to why there was prejudice, discriminatory acts done by these different organizations. The general reasons are not pleasant. Surprisingly, Shilts gives a better literary argument than the Susan Sontag, author of AIDS and Its Metaphors. He describes how many physicians in light of the epidemic began labeling the disease Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID), and labeled homosexual men as the only carriers of the illness. This label caused many believers in the straight community (with further research from other books, also the gay community) to believe that homosexuals were being infected because they somehow deserve it - or God was punishing that population for their lifestyle. Similar to the story, We Are All the Same, it was written by a journalist. Shilts covered the AIDS epidemic full time as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. What differs from the two books is that this one gives a primary source of what happened during the AIDS/HIV epidemic in San Francisco and New York the two main breeding grounds of AIDS/HIV in the United States instead of Africa. This was the main reason I chose to read this book and use it as a resource for my essay.

Wooten, Jim. We Are All The Same. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004. Print.

Wooten tells the story of Nkosi Johnson, a boy born in South Africa with the infected HIV virus. While Wooten tells his story, the reader learns the tragedies South African citizens had to go through because of the governments denial of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Their stubborn refusal

Tinoco 5

to actively search for a solution not only stonewalled progressive research, it allowed HIV & AIDS to grow exponentially. This source gives an eyewitness account of what has happened in South Africa as a result of its citizens ignorance to HIV/AIDS prevention and its governments unwillingness to care for its already infected victims. I wanted to know why the epidemic spread as fast as it did from its original continent. It gave me a better insight and also helped me realize how important a collaborative effort is to killing this epidemic. Jim Wooten was the senior correspondent for ABC News Nightline after retiring in 2005. He has served as a bureau chief, national correspondent, and White House correspondent for The New York Times. He is the recipient of the 2002 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism. His sources are quite credible.

Verghese, Abraham. My Own Country. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Print.

Personally, I have not experienced nor seen another person discriminated against for having an HIV/AIDS positive status. I have never thought about being in that situation. I was able to empathize for HIV/AIDS victims who are unjustly discriminated against after reading this book. The author doesnt actively persuade the reader to fight for HIV/AIDS victims civil rightshe doesnt use the word persuade even once. Instead, the book is a timeline collection of his memories, experiences, and thoughts of when he was working for Johnson City Medical Center during the beginnings of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Johnson City, Tennessee. In order to comply with HIPPA regulations, he changes his patients actual names, but gives life to each of his patients with explicit detail. The use of imagery is extensive and effective enough for the reader to understand each patients background story. This humanizes each of the individual patients, creating further sympathy for them after learning how HIV/AIDS discrimination had

Tinoco 6

affected their overall well-being. This book created the basis of my essay by helping me realize the discrimination that happens to HIV/AIDS victims. Dr. Verghese is a well-known physician of internal medicine, professor, and author. Two of his books, Cutting for Stone & The Tennis Player, have been on New York Times bestseller list. His sources are credible.