The Conversation Starts Here

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists and their allies have gathered in Dallas for the annual Creating Change Conference, sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. And today, Rea Carey, executive director of NGLTF took to the stage in Dallas to deliver the annual State of the Movement speech.

Let me back up a bit. This same conference came to Detroit in 2008, and it was during then-executive director Matt Foreman’s State of the Movement speech that Foreman declared HIV is a “gay disease,” and that the community members “need to own up to it.” Foreman delivered that stunning statement, overturning nearly two decades of HIV activism bent on addressing HIV stigma which is fueled by homophobia, as he was leaving the NGLTF for a new job.

Carey replaced him. And since Foreman, who one presumes was speaking for NGLTF as a whole, threw down the gauntlet and demanded the community “own up to it,” in regards to the disproportional impact of HIV on the men who have sex with men community (gay and bisexual men); one would expect Carey to have stepped into the role and taken up that gauntlet.

If you expected that– as I did– you have been sorely disappointed by Ms. Carey’s leadership.

In 2009, I lamented her failure to address the issue in her State of the Movement speech.

On World AIDS Day, Dec. 1 2009, Carey issued a statement about the epidemic which could generously be described as tepid. There was no call to action. There was NO action.

So I should not have been surprised when Carey’s speech passed through my in-box today, via Bil Browning over at Bilerico Project. And yet, I was suprised– surprised and angry that once again, Carey ignored the HIV epidemic that is chewing up our youth, and particularly our youth of color in the LGBT community. Ignored barely begins to describe what she did.

Carey has closeted and silenced the epidemic, once again. Resorting to Reagan era tactics. Carey might as well be Margaret Heckler, Reagan’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, for the callousness with which she ignored the epidemic raging in the young men who have sex with men community, and the coming crisis. Ostriches are likely embarrassed by the comparisons one can make between her buried in the sand silence on the issue, and giant flightless bird’s alleged penchant to bury its head in the sand when danger approaches.

Nary a word about the crisis. Nary a word about the embolden movement of some in law enforcement to over charge and up-charge defendants in criminal cases merely for the fact they are HIV-positive. Carey, and her team — like the other “leading” LGBT group in the nation, HRC– have remained steadfast in their refusal to even condemn the unprecedented bioterrorism charge levied against Daniel Allen of Clinton Township, MI.

Carey, her team and HRC have remained steadfast in their silence about the criminalization of HIV in all 50 states.

These national leaders have remained steadfast in refusing to call out the game playing, bullshitting of CDC con-artists– sorry PR hacks– who run around claiming love, peace and poptarts for their failed HIV prevention programming. Programs which are clearly failing because thousands of Americans, most of whom are men who have sex with men and are of color, continue to be infected with HIV every year.

Nary a word from Carey and ilk of the gay elite toasting the town and tossing appletinis down their gullets in Dallas about the offensive, paltry funding HIV prevention is receiving– only 4% of the total amount of federal cash spent on HIV issues in the U.S. is spent on prevention– and it’s stigmatizing impact on HIV-positives who are presented with “prevention for positives” programs which create an allusion that some how positives have an uber-responsibility to prevent others from getting infected.

So I have to ask a question that I personally don’t like the answer to. Why are the national elites, who brag in their fundraising and action alert e-mails about their unprecedented access to the Obama administration, ignoring the raging epidemic amongst America’s MSM communities, and specifically the communities of color? I am left with the terrifying realization that it comes down to money.

HIV is passe. The big wigs with cash won’t write checks to fund HIV legislation lobbying work, and many of the groups of AIDS, Inc. are so functionally conflicted in challenging the status quo because next month’s pay check comes from the status quo maker they are incapable of demanding effective funding for medical care, services and prevention funds. Afterall, AIDS, Inc. relies on those hefty checks from the CDC to pay their bills, so no rocking the boat too much there.

And since HIV is passe in the gay men’s community– you know it is, afterall, just a manageable disease, and “not a big deal”– there is no cash in lobbying for the issue. The so-called rank and file, mostly white middle to upper class gay men and lesbians, don’t want their money to go to HIV lobbying efforts when it can go to gay marriage and repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. And, god forbid, if you ask those appletini touting A&F queers to support HIV lobbying which will impact and lift up men of color… Don’t get me started on that arrogance and racism.

HIV has become the red-headed step child of the gay movement. Sadly, anyone with a sense of our history knows, as the AIDS epidemic consumed our community, rich to poor, white and black, men and women, it created a sense of panic and urgency which in turn flooded the coffers of HRC and NGLTF with cash. It brought our community out of the closet and into the streets, because it was no longer a matter of worrying about keeping our cushy 9 to 5  jobs, it was literally a matter of life and death. Our leaders spoke with one voice on the crisis, when they finally started speaking about it, and our community was extremely effective in battling the disease, pushing the battle lines back. By the mid-90s new cases being reported dropped of sharply, and as a result of activism by the elite and the rabble in the street known as ACT UP and Queer Nation, new lines of research funding were released and new drugs developed which reached people more quickly.

Well, the people who could afford it got the new drugs.

And that is the issue today. The people being impacted by this virus are invisible because they do not have money. Money buys access, and access gets legislation. But communities of color are historically impacted by higher levels of poverty and dulled voices at the political bargaining table. Men who have sex with men who are members of minority communities are further excluded from these hallways and chambers of power because of poverty, racism and homophobia.

Ms. Carey has continued a powerful, and painful legacy of the gay elite. She has silenced those within our community who most need voices. She has hidden the dividing lines of class, poverty and race. She is, when all is said and done, responsible to answering to the moneyed power brokers who fund her group and are, essentially, her share holders.

So, Ms. Carey, when are YOU going to “own up to that?”