The AIDS menace has shifted ground over the years in New York. Now it is affecting people of color.
The majority of people living with AIDS in New York are people of color. African-Americans are eight times as likely to have HIV as whites, and Hispanics are more than four times as likely to have the virus. Heterosexual black and Latina women's rates are the worst of all. Yet awareness of the danger is slow to penetrate. The Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), founded in 1981 to combat the AIDS epidemic among gay and bisexual, mostly white and middle-class, men, now has a clientele that is mostly people of color.
Ron Johnson, Director of Public Information for GMHC, just got back from a trip to Africa, where the AIDS epidemic rages among heterosexuals, and has already left 10 million children orphans. He knows of the dangers of heterosexual transmission well, and speaks of the special peril facing minority populations.
"From day one, AIDS disproportionately affected blacks and Latinos," Johnson says. "They suffer from higher infection rates, and develop full-blown AIDS at higher rates" than white populations.
The reasons for this are manifold. First, says Johnson, prevention messages were not targeted to the black and Latino communities. "There was some racism involvedÑthe same attention was not afforded them. There was also discrimination against substance usersÑyou don't have people advocating to save the lives of substance users. And when a heroin addict dies, that's not news."
In addition, Johnson noted, many gay men of color don't identify or think of themselves as being "gay." "Sex" is something you have with a woman; you "mess around" with men. Denial, drug use, the cultural stigma of homosexual behavior in "macho" society, and racism and neglect in the larger society have combined to create a terrible problem in preventing and treating AIDS in minority communities.
But the fastest-growing rates of all are not among gay or bisexual men, but among young women of color. According to Johnson, "there is a very serious problem with teenage girls. Their rates of infection are higher than among the teenage boysÑthat suggests they're not having sex with their peers, they're having sex with older, infected men." And stark statistics show that AIDS is the leading cause of death for black women from ages 25 to 40. "Heterosexual transmission surpassed drug use as the infection source for women 3-4 years ago."
A big problem, he says, is the myth that heterosexual men can't get AIDS from women. "They firmly believe it. Also, there are numbers of closeted bisexual men in the black and Latino community." To make matters worse, he adds, it is often difficult for black and Latino women to negotiate matters of sex with men, such as condom use.
GMHC is approaching the problem directly, both by offering its array of prevention, treatment, and counseling services to minorities, and by reaching out to the black and Latino communities in the city. Soul Food targets black gay men, and Troyecto PAPI is a prevention program for Latinos. GMHC also has a youth initiative that works with young people of color, teaching them about prevention and risk factors, improving their judgement. All these programs work to build the participants' self-esteem and sense of community.
GMHC programs targeting the minority communities in the City have provided AIDS educational programs for the past five years, and client services such as case management, free meals, nutritional counseling, short-term mental health counseling, child care for women, group counseling, and home visits by "Buddies."
Gail Sounds Off:
The one group that has not been strongly or directly addressed by government or private agencies in the war against AIDS is heterosexual men. "No one is talking to heterosexual men," says Johnson. "That's been my pet peeve for 14 years!" Why aren't they? "No one wants to tackle the resistance."
Yet the example of Africa, where the AIDS virus nearly always transmitted by heterosexual contact, and men most certainly get the disease and die of it, is a clear warning that more attention must be paid to debunking the myths that straight men can't get HIV from women or from young women. Men need to be educated about their responsibility for not passing the infection on to others. And everyone needs to learn about risk factors, dangerous behavior, prevention measures, and treatment options.
As long as there are at-risk groups who deny their vulnerability to the disease, there will be a reservoir of the virus among us. Luckily, AIDS is hard to contract, and prevention is very effective. But effective prevention will mean a change of attitude in all the population at risk, which is all of us.
The number of young people serving time in adult prisons more than doubled between 1985 and 1997, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1997, 7,400 kids under the age of 18 were sentenced to adult prisons, up from 3,400 in 1985. The increase occurred while juvenile arrests rates fell. Minors still make up less than 1% of the adult prison population.
The Justice Department attributes the increase to a wave of state measures making it easier to try juveniles in adult court. Every state now has at least one provision to transfer juveniles to adult courts. New York State's 1978 law was the first and its provisions are among the toughest in the country. Along with only two other states - Connecticut and North Carolina - New York tries every defendant over the age of 15 in adult court.
Younger kids are also tried in adult court for a range of violent crimes, from possession of a gun on school grounds to murder. The most recent available data shows that in 1996, 1,628 New York State offenders under 18 began serving sentences in adult prisons.
In addition to the 7,400 young prisoners cited by the Justice Department, there are 9,000 children 17 and younger sitting in pre-trial detention jails with adults. Nancy Rosenbloom of the New York Legal Aid Society said the number of NYC minors being held before trial is continuing to increase even while juvenile arrests are going down. The City Department of Correctional Services declined to say how many juveniles are detained on Rikers Island. Rosenbloom estimated the number at several hundred.
Holding juveniles with adults while they await trial is bad public policy. Young people, unlike adults, are often arrested in groups, peripheral parties to a youth crime. As a result, there are typically several kids among those arrested who are eventually freed without charge, or acquitted. "They've gotten a lot meaner, they've learned a lot about crime - and they're back on the street," observed Vincent Schiraldi, director of the Washington-based Justice Policy Institute. New York City should immediately develop alternatives to Rikers Island for kids awaiting trial.
Peggy J. Farber is freelance journalist specializing in children's issues. Her reporting on conditions of NYC children has appeared in City Limits Magazine as well as on National Public Radio.
A building collapses in Williamsburg, several workers are hurt and one man dies. (12 Workers Buried Alive: One Dead in Brooklyn Construction Horror.) A few weeks later, five Times Square restaurant employees are overtaken with fumes, and a man dies.
The common thread in both of these tragedies: the victims were low-wage immigrant workers.
"Immigrant status forces people into compromising positions," commented Benjamin Sachs of the Workplace Justice Project, a new area of focus for the community-based group Make The Road By Walking in Bushwick, Brooklyn. "They take jobs that are not safe or work for wages that are illegal: less than minimum wage or over 40 hours a week without overtime pay.
"Immigrants are more vulnerable to exploitation," explained Sachs, "because of the threat, either vague or explicit of INS action. This is a real threat if they are undocumented. But even if they are documented, it is still a threat, because they are often not sure of their status and the consequences of standing up for their rights."
Sachs gave the example of one man who wanted to file for unemployment benefits, but he was reluctant to do so because he was unsure of whether, if he went to the Wage and Labor Board to file a claim, the INS would stop him from bringing his daughters over.
"The language barrier is also significant," said Sachs. And yes, he added, there is a measure of racism on the part of employers and unions.
About twenty-five people have walked into the newly-formed Workplace Justice Project seeking help over the last three months, many of them newcomers to this country,. "Usually people wait until they lose a job before coming to us," said Sachs.
Sachs explained that the bad economic situation often forces immigrants to stay in unfair or unsafe labor situations. According to figures about the Bushwick community, where the majority of residents are immigrants, the average per capita income is $6,687; over 40 percent of the residents live below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate is 20 percent.
In exchange for legal assistance, the Workplace Justice Project asks participants for an oral job history and to participate in a Workplace Rights Discussion.
One man who walked through the door seeking help was Raul Soria, a 44-year-old man from Peru who has been in the US for six years.
"I arrived here like a lot of people," said Raul, through a translator, "with illusions, plans and projects." In Peru, he studied accounting and had his own business. His plans included finding work and enrolling in business courses. Six years later, after a string of low-paying restaurant jobs with unfair wages, unsafe practices and long hours that left no time for study, Raul is disillusioned.
Because of the language barrier, the only work he was able to get was as a dishwasher. In his first job, and every one that followed, Raul was paid minimum wage and expected to work between 40 and 70 hours a week without overtime pay. He knew he was supposed to get time and a half after 40 hours. He knew the law, but he also knew he had to pay his rent and send money to his wife and son, so he couldn't risk getting fired.
"It is illegal to fire someone for demanding legal wages," said Benjamin Sachs, "but it happens all the time."
Significantly though, as Raul Soria's work history makes clear, not demanding your rights doesn't necessarily ensure job security either.
In July 1995, Raul started working for the Gloucester Restaurant on 50th Street between Park and Madison. His salary was $350 a week for 40 hours, but after five or six months, the owner, Peter Skeadas, started paying him only $150, for the same amount of time. According to Raul, he was made to work with sewage water from the basement up to his ankles, and required to work overtime even while earning less money. If he didn't, he was told, he would be fired.
In June 1998, Raul was hired as a dishwasher at La Boheme on Minetta Lane, by the owner for $270 week and was told his hours would be 5:30 to 11:30, six days a week. In reality, he often worked until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, but he received no overtime pay. He was also asked to do extra work, cleaning the exhaust and appliances with toxic chemicals, a job usually done by a special contractor. Raul left and sought help from the Workplace Justice Project. With their assistance he confronted his former boss and told her "you violated my rights; you owe me money."
According to Benjamin Sachs, "sometimes the employer pays, sometimes they don't. Usually they don't. But it was an incredible experience for Raul to confront her. He was great. And we're going to continue to fight until we get the wages," Sachs promised.
Of course, it's not enough just to enforce minimum wage and overtime. "The real answer to ensure progress is by organizing," said Sachs. "These issues don't just impact immigrants," he said. "Immigrants are more vulnerable and face additional issues. But they have the same rights under the employment laws as all citizens do; even undocumented immigrants have these rights. If an employer could ignore employee laws for immigrant workers, then that would be a huge incentive to hire immigrant workers and exploit them."
Lynda Sounds Off:
ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS SET-UP FOR FAILURE: In June of this year, New York State will require all high school students to pass a Regents Language Arts Exam in order to graduate. These new standards will be particularly hard on English Language Learners
"This year alone, over 6,000 English Language Learners may be kept from graduating because they aren't able to pass a test for which they have not been adequately prepared," said Margie McHugh, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) in a presentation before the New York State Assembly's Task Force on New Americans, and Subcommittee on Bilingual Education.
NYIC recommendations include additional English Language instruction, certification of ESL teachers, funding for resources like technology and textbooks, increased parent involvement, appropriate testing, and the delay of implementation of the English Language Arts Regents for English Language Learners until the Class of 2004.
"We know these children can succeed if they are given the time and opportunity to do so," said Ms. McHugh.
Over 150,000 students in the City and over 200,000 in the State are English Language Learners. How can we set a standard for excellence for our children without helping them to reach it? Immigrant students as a rule have lower drop-out rates and higher graduation rates than non-immigrants