This one-day workshop at UC-Berkeley School of Law will meet to engage the following issues. Historically, the government and mainstream media framed HIV/AIDS primarily as a disease of gay white men. How has this framing harmed men who have sex with men (“MSM”) but do not identify as gay, especially men of color? How has it harmed women of color? President Obama’s National HIV/AIDS Strategy suggests that the traditional framing seems to be shifting to afford greater recognition of the racial impact of the epidemic. What are the advantages and disadvantages of reframing HIV/AIDS as a black and brown disease? To what extent are whites in competition with people of color to control the agenda regarding HIV/AIDS research, activism and policy making? What can federal and state governments do to address HIV-related racial and gender disparities? How can scholars work with activists and policy makers to reveal and attack the raced and gendered dimensions of the epidemic?
We will engage these questions during a mix of private and public sessions. Most of the day will be devoted to two invitation-only private sessions involving scholars, activists and policy makers. The day will culminate with a panel discussion open to students and scholars across campus as well as the general public.
Speakers on the public panel will include: Carlos Ulises Decena, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University, Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies/Women’s and Gender Studies Department; Brook Kelly, HIV Human Rights Attorney, Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Disease (WORLD), National Positive Women’s Network; Naina Khanna, Director of Policy and Community Organizing, WORLD, National Positive Women’s Network; Dorothy Roberts, Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law; Northwestern University School of Law; Patrick Wilson, Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health.