AIDS AND ACCUSATION

Paul Farmer is quite the inspiration. Reading his book has put countless ideas concerning Haiti's relationship with the US in perspective for me. I have read up on the history of Haiti before, but never in the context of the issue with HIV/AIDS. His background information and history on the oppression of a whole country since its creation explains many questions frequently asked when Americans think of Haiti. Our discussion on Thursday about the importance of including history of a culture and the importance that culture plays in an epidemic made me even more appreciative of Farmers writing style for this piece. When you only look at a demographic, you see numbers. Every number is a person. Farmer, with his focus on medical anthropolgy, does well not to forget this. When we forget that each number is a life and that each life had a history, our problem changes from just an epidemic to an epidemic of blame and ignorance.

NOTORIOUS

Today's discussion on Shevory's Notorious HIV was extremely interesting to me. I love to hear the class get excited about a topic, and especially argue with how an author does things. I feel when this happens we get more out of the assignment. Nushawn Williams was a sticky situation and reminded me of the case I have been reporting on Twitter about lately. Phillipe Padieu, 54, has been sent to prison after transmitting HIV and infecting at least 11 past girlfriends. After it was proven that he knew he was infected and continued to have unprotected sex, Padieu was convicted in a TX courtroom of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and later sentenced to 45 years in prison. Like Dr. Orvis said, it is hard to come to a definite answer when dealing with the issue of transmission, denial, and knowledge of infection. There are so many "what if"s, so many "but..."s it is hard to decide how to go about this within the means of the law--or if it should be brought into this spectrum at all.

href="http://abcnews.go.com/2020/women-contracted-hiv-speak/story?id=8594640"

The Education of Shelby Knox.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but this documentary brought an immense sadness to my heart. How do we combat ignorance and those desperate to turning a blind eye in hopes of keeping up mindless "appearances"? Though I agree with some of my classmates about the reliability of Shelby Knox as a narrator and leader for such daunting topics--especially for such a young girl--I also agree with Dr. Orvis in saying that these huge events can be jarring for one who has been taught certain things her whole life. I have never had to go through the let down of religion vs. personal convictions, but I absolutely have an appreciation for those who have and had to choose the path that may disagree with those of the people they love and respect. I found updates on Shelby Knox on the Lubbock, TX town website, www.lubbockonline.com. These days she is dealing with addressing the issues of the LGBT community and the process of "coming out". I found it interesting that she is still so passionate and continuing to push forward. http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/100209/fea_500173584.shtml