In the Life: Ep. 1808, "Confronting Crisis"

[Michael Billy] Coming up on "In the Life", an investigation into  the alarming rise of HIV infection among young gay men of color. In spite of everything that's gone on, people don't feel at risk. [Billy] A conversation with the Audre Lorde Project's  Kris Hayashi and Glen Francis from the GRIOT Circle. Isolation for folks in our community is such a huge issue. [Billy] And Isaac Julien remembers artist, poet, and filmmaker Derek Jarman. We wanted to re-memorialize Derek. [Billy] All this and more, on "In the Life". [Announcer] "In the Life" is funded in part by: the H. van Ameringen Foundation; Arcus Foundation; Newpol Foundation; the Estate of Richard W. Weiland; Council of Fashion Designers of America - Vogue Initiative; New York City AIDS Fund of the New York Community Trust; and these funders; and by the annual support of In the Life members like you. Welcome to "In the Life", I'm Michael Billy. A popular stereotype of gays and lesbians in America is that we're all young, white, affluent, and urban. Closer to reality is that LGBT people are as diverse as America itself. We are everywhere and in every social, religious, age, educational, political, and socio-economic group. Reflecting that reality, tonight we investigate the rising rates of HIV among Black and Latino men. Learn about two community organizations that provide vital resources for people of color, and meet a filmmaker inspired by an artist and activist. ["In the Life" theme music] More than a decade after Andrew Sullivan declared the end of AIDS on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, Black and Latino communities in the U.S. continue to be devastated by the disease. Our first story explores the efforts underway to fight this largely invisible crisis. A crisis in which race, class, and poverty combine to hinder HIV prevention and treatment. [drumbeat] [Monica Sweeney] You know, as HIV and AIDS has changed from being a white, gay, male, middle and upper-middle class disease to a disease of people of color, it has disappeared  from the front pages of many publications. [Daniel Leyva] When we talk about HIV and AIDS in the Latino community, people say, "well that's a problem of Africa," because that's what we all have been told. [Phil Wilson] If Black America were a country unto itself, it would have an epidemic that outstrips the epidemic in Ethiopia, Namibia, Botswana, Haiti, now Cuba. When you look at Black gay men, you know, you have an epidemic that outstrips anyplace else on the planet. [drumbeat music] [Sweeney] There's over a hundred thousand people in New York City living with HIV and AIDS. The numbers in the 13- to 29-year-old age group has been going up with men who have sex with men, and the Black and Latino community makes up 80% of that number. [wistful piano music] [Wilson] The AIDS epidemic in Black communities  now exists for a whole host of reasons. One is the way the virus works and because Black communities were slow to respond to the AIDS epidemic in the beginning because the AIDS epidemic was mischaracterized as a white gay disease. And so quite frankly it's kind of those, the old phrase, "While you were sleeping." You know, why, while we weren't paying attention, the virus had a chance to take a hold in our communities. That means that in Black gay context, nearly one out of two sexual encounters you're likely to encounter HIV. [soft music] [Sweeney] In the Black community, there is a lot of denial.  People just don't think they're at risk. In spite of everything that's gone on, people don't feel at risk. [Sweeney] When one talks about HIV as being a chronic disease but not fatal, that's half of the story, because HIV is a chronic disease in many instances, but it's also fatal in many instances. The concept on the street that it's a chronic disease - "Oh, I can take one pill a day." You know, there's this commercial that says, "One pill a day, you can stay on top of your HIV." [Leyva] The fact that actually, many ads coming from pharmaceutical companies are showing us all these beautiful, hunky, young mens, you know, ready to take over the world is really not helping. And what I'm saying is, we don't have a balance between scaring people about HIV and telling them HIV is not a problem. [upbeat blues music] Today I would like to share with you a story about my AIDS. I'm just about hitting 30 and I feel and look fantastic. My AIDS pills have been keeping me embalmed for some time now on the outside anyways. I believe I've [bleep] my spleen last week, and my liver is surely next to go. We'll go for a walk. [Christopher de la Torre] I decided I would use comedy to talk about my personal stories in dealing with, whether it's being gay, or HIV, or homeless. I was definitely a welfare baby. Um, so I'm no stranger to food stamps or, um, government checks. [Kenyon Farrow] A lot of the factors that are driving the epidemic are issues of poverty and lack of access to health care. [Wilson] In Los Angeles where I live, emergency rooms are being closed. Entire hospitals serving, you know, Black and brown communities are being closed. So  people don't have the same level of access to care and treatment. There's the issue around HIV science literacy. You know, often in poor communities and people of color communities, people don't understand the science of HIV. And when you don't understand the science of HIV, you're less able to protect yourself from the virus and infection. [Justin Walker] My family, they are from a small town in Virginia. And there's not very much exposure to HIV or if there is, no one's really talking about it. So I've lost a lot of family members that were - that I thought were really close to me. When I told them that I was positive, a lot of them kind of took a major step back. And just since June of 2005, I've been out of communication with them. [Stacey Latimer] It's very obvious that we have not done a good  job as a people. We have not done a good job as a church. We have not done a good job as a family  in dealing with wh-, HIV and sexuality. [Farrow] When you add the burden of homophobia to that context, once you are either removed or isolated from your community and your social networks, be it family, larger community structures, the church, given disproportionate levels of poverty and  unemployment, what do you have to fall back on? [sung] We lift our hands in the sanctuary. We lift our hands... [Zachary Jones] Homosexuality in the Black church is a major sin. Many people who found themselves gravely ill also came out. They used that time to talk about their sexuality. So the focus became the sexuality versus the human suffering of the disease. So Unity filled a gap in that way. Unity Fellowship begin to look closely at the theology of mainstream churches. And we begin to challenge some of those ideas. [Jones] We thank you dear God for a place where we can come as one people Black and white, straight and gay, all together in one place, on one accord, for one reason. We don't take it for granted. We don't take it lightly! [Leyva] In the Latino community certainly we still struggle about talking in terms of sexuality and sexual health. It comes with a number of issues: homophobia, the lack of opportunity to talk about sexual orientation, stigma. And we immediately try to make a moral judgment. [dramatic rock music] [Sweeney] All of these social factors that has to do with people's behaviors that often show that they don't have any hope for the future. So if you don't have any hope for the future you don't pay much attention to what you do today that impacts your future. [music] [Derwin Williams] Taken the test a lot. And I've always come here. And I guess the church is the safest place for me and I feel more comfortable at church by taking it and I'm glad that my church actually does provide it. [Worker] Would you like - you gonna take the test? [Wilson] When people don't feel safe, they are less likely to disclose, know their risk factors and they're less likely to seek care and treatment. [Worker] What do you expect your results to be today? Positive, negative, or not sure? [Williams] Honestly, not sure. [Worker] If you were tested for HIV, what would you do? [Williams] From that point on, I would make sure I have to take care of myself better. [Worker] Would you seek ph-, would you seek a physician? [Williams] Yeah. That's what I need to do, is seek coverage for a doctor. [Worker] I need you to take that. [Sweeney] In New York City, almost a thousand people a year get tested for HIV, have already advanced to AIDS. That means, for eight to ten years they have been usually unknowingly transmitting the infection to other people. [Latimer] When I moved here one of the churches was having an outreach and I joined their outreach. Justin showed up. It was difficult for me to see an 18-year-old  in the condition that Justin was in. Justin was with me until he got his health back. And to see as many young people who are continuously getting infected, they need guidance, they need to be empowered to learn how to live. And that becomes my role for Justin, that, you know, you can survive with HIV. Not just survive, but you can live, be prosperous and productive, you know, it, within your community. [Farrow] We have no national strategy, coordinated plan to deal with, you know, HIV, either prevention, testing, or care. What we have is quite frankly a collection of uncoordinated  programs that work in silos unto themselves. [Worker] Um, Derwin. Come here. [Worker] Your test came back negative, which is a good thing. So since it's negative try to keep it negative. Use protection... [Sweeney] It's very important to make HIV and AIDS - to integrate it into the fabric of health care in general. In community-based programs in general. In faith-based programs in general. And not to separate it out. The longer we separate it out, the more it's stigmatized. And we need to work to de-stigmatizing. We need to develop a nationalized strategy with integrated programs with specific goals and objectives where people are held accountable, you know, along the way. That certainly is the only way that we're going to end the AIDS epidemic, you know, the, in the United States writ large. And it's also the only way that we're going  to end the AIDS epidemic in Black America. [music] [theme music] Tonight we feature A Conversation With Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Audre Lorde Project and Glen Francis, executive director of GRIOT Circle, both at the forefront of organizing LGBT people of color. Hey man, how you doing? Good, good, how are you? [Glen Francis] It's been a while. [Kris Hayashi] Yeah. [laughs] So tell me what's up with ALP these days? [Hayashi] When I came into the organization, AL- the Audre Lorde Project had gone through a shift in mission and focus to prioritizing community organizing, grassroots organizing, in our work and making that much more central. [Hayashi] So one example is, we have an immigrant rights project led and run by lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirit, trans, and gender non-conforming immigrants of color. It's meant really mobilizing folks within immigrant communities who are LGBTST folks of color to organize around those issues and to build community with each other. [Hayashi] The Audre Lorde Project launched a trans and gender non-conforming organizing project, TransJustice. We've been focusing our work most recently on discrimination and harassment that people are facing when they're trying to access public assistance and welfare. [Francis] Right. Yeah. Right. You know, we hear stories of trans, trans women who talk about going to see their caseworker and the caseworker will purposefully call out their masculine name [Francis] Mmm-hmm. Yeah. [Hayashi] in front of other workers, in front of other clients, and things like that really prohibiting folks access to services. So we've been doing this whole campaign to try and call on the city to put policies and procedures in place that are going to train workers and prevent the discrimination and harassment that people are facing. Yeah, it's... it, I mean it - you're talking about cultural competency on every level. [Hayashi] Exactly. How are things going at GRIOT? Being the only intergenerational culturally diverse Senior Center here in the city, GRIOT kind of started as this response to the AIDS crisis in the early '80s. [Francis] In fact, Regina Shavers, who was the executive director before me and the founder of GRIOT Circle was very instrumental. In fact, a couple of her friends at the time were battling HIV and they were losing their home and there were  some other issues as well going on. And looking at the community for benefits or to support these people in crisis, she found there was no, there was no response to that. [Francis] She thought that there should be a community response. And a community response came to be GRIOT Circle. We're still battling HIV and we have - what we have - the statistics are like 71% of everyone over 40 is HIV positive. We have the baby boom generation who is gonna be turning 60 within the next, what five years? And that's a whole new pandemic of HIV. It's one of the, it's one of the main things we're working there. Two components of that. One is the HIV component which we're doing, and the other one is the cultural competency piece which we're doing with, with senior centers throughout the city. It's, it's tough, it's tough to find senior centers who will tell you that there are no gay people  in the center and then I go, "Hello." [Hayashi chuckles] That tells me more how much training you need as well as your staff. You know, because if people who were born in the '20s and '30s and '40s are still living their lives in, in fear and in isolation, then something is wrong. You know one of the programs we have is a program we named the internship program. LGBT youth that go to schools within the New York City area can come to GRIOT Circle as a certified training site and be able to get computer training, and be able to be mentored. I mean, these kids come in and they just... they never knew that we lived... to be 50. [Hayashi chuckles] And then when they come in and they see all these older folks hanging out and doing wood carving and on the computers and on the internet and, I mean and just doing administrative tasks that they're willing to do, it's quite amazing to see the response from them. You know, isolation for folks in our community is such a huge issue. I mean, it makes me think about this, this one trans woman, trans woman of color who, you know, talked about how she felt so isolated, felt, you know afraid to actually even step outside of her apartment every day because of the type of harassment that she was facing on the streets, you know in the subways and so on. And coming to TransJustice meetings was, you know, basically knowing that they could actually change something and so making that, taking that step to leave their apartment and to get involved in groups like TransJustice and organizing, saying to them you know, "These are, this is what's happening, this is what needs to change." Stories like that, you know, really, for me are what, are what the work's about. You know? Like folks who, like are struggling on a daily basis just to survive but know that their survival is connected to being able to organize and to be part of movements. [Francis] Absolutely. [Francis] You know, Audre Lorde has a quote that says, "If you don't  define yourself for yourself, then others will, basically define you." And, and so it's really interesting that, that we as people of color organizations are really geared to empowering our communities. As you know, we get less but- less than 1% of the LGBT funding comes to people of color communities. [Hayashi] A lot of times, um, folks are trying to win issues or do things for us, [Francis] Yes. [Hayashi] you know, when clearly we're able to do that for ourselves. [theme music] Finally tonight, Isaac Julien paints a loving portrait of groundbreaking artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman in his film "Derek". "In the Life" spoke with Isaac Julien and MoMA's chief film curator Raj Roy about Jarman's seminal body of work. But a film got conceived really through the producer Colin MacCabe, who had done this amazing interview of Derek in 1990. And he had kept that interview and I think after a decade had gone part, turned around and said to me, "We really have to make a film." And I said, "You've got to be joking." You know, how do you make a film out of just a day interview? [Julien] We started collaborating with Tilda Swinton a couple of years before we actually shot the film, because I was really very, very enamored with her "Letter to an Angel" which is published in The Guardian, sort of homage to Derek's work. We wanted to, in a way, kind of re-memorialize Derek for a new generation. [Tilda Swinton] I remember the sea. [peaceful music] I remember the garden. [peaceful music] I remember the cottage. [peaceful music] But most of all, I remember you. Dear Derek. [Rajendra Roy] Most people these days would categorize Derek Jarman as a filmmaker first. And in many ways you could call him a queer filmmaker, an avant-garde filmmaker. I prefer to think of him as an artist who worked in film. I wish I could take all my works with me. [laughs] There's a very existential part to direct- making films. They're a part of his life. They're not just films. [Julien] Art and life are intertwined really in the films that Derek makes and I think because of the political statements he's making through those films, the very act of making them became very important in terms of a cultural repositioning of what was being, in a way repressed at that particular moment in time. If you're talking about say "Jubilee", the film he made in 1977, timed with the Queen's 25th anniversary, it really embraced the punk movement and the kind of chaos that that movement was engendering and celebrating and incorporated it into a filmic vision. So in many ways the whole process, the chaotic process of making a film became a signature style. And the end result was ultimately embraced although at the time he was not uniformly embraced even on the punk scene. He was still seen as an outsider mostly because he had queer content. [Julien] Course Derek was an incredible painter. He was also an incredible writer. You know, he was a renaissance man and I think there's way in which he was a one-off. But certainly I think all of those certain inquiries are very important to, even my own work. In many ways, Isaac, Isaac's story parallels Derek's, in that he pioneered not only a new way of working but a new way of telling a story that was completely authentic to his experience. I mean I did, I participated in quite a lot of those activities through all the sort of adventures I made in the gay community. You know, and so, you know, I was involved in OutRage!, which was a sort of version of sort of, um, ACT UP or Queer Nation in England. So, I mean, in a way I think there is a certain autobiographical aspect in that work for me as well, but it's just deployed differently. [protest whistles] [Swinton] At a time when some were calling for the setting up of ostracized HIV island communities, and others feared not only for their lives, but believe it or not, also for their jobs, their insurance policies, their friendships, their civil rights. Your defiant gesture of public confession was made with such particular and characteristically inclusive generosity. But it was at that point that you made an impact that far out spanned the influence of your work. [Julien] Well it was very, very difficult, so it was a very brave thing to do what he did. Five years ago, I, I publicized that I was HIV positive and - in the press and not knowing really where this would lead. When Derek expressed that he was publicly HIV positive, I think his work became more serious. Films like  "The Last of England" they're really quite pertinent in terms of having a particular serious tone to them. "The Last of England" actually picks up with a sort of su-, shear a-a-anger that was in "Jubilee". Does it in a different way. As though looking down the barrel of a rifle or something. You tend to be in a straightforward attack [explosions and sound effects] [Roy] The kind of cross queer embrace of the struggle was very much part of his work and informed the way that he moved his work forward, ultimately arriving at "Blue" which is the most transcendent work of cinema probably in the last 20 years. [Derek Jarman] I caught myself looking at shoes in a shop window. I thought of going in and buying a pair but stopped myself. The shoes I'm wearing at the moment should be sufficient to walk me out of life. It's his perspective on life but certainly also on dying. There's metaphor, in terms of the color blue. It's what he could see at that point because of the degenerative nature of his disease. At this stage, you know, I mean, I hope I'm not ill for a long time, but it's not a worry. I have to say, I've completely come to terms with all of this. Because it's sort of like - well there's nothing else to do, is there? So the thing is to smile through it. [Roy] And I think only through channeling his experience of knowing his death was coming, but part, being part of a struggle to fight to make sure that those lives counted. That is what makes Derek's work transcend time really, in the end. Thank you for watching "In the Life". To learn more about tonight's stories and how they affect you, visit our website at inthelifeTV.org. You can also watch extended interviews, sign up for monthly air date alerts, and download past episodes 24/7. I'm Michael Billy. Thanks for tuning in and please join us next month. [sung] We lift our hands in the sanctuary. We lift our hands to give You the glory. We lift our hands to give You the praise. And we will praise You for the rest of our days. Yes, we will praise You for the rest of our days. [gospel music] Yes! Yes! [Announcer] "In the Life" is funded in part by: the H. van Ameringen Foundation; Arcus Foundation; Newpol Foundation; the estate of Richard W. Weiland; Council of Fashion Designers of America - Vogue Initiative; New York City AIDS Fund of the New York Community Trust; and these funders; and by the annual support of In the Life members like you. [logo music] [logo music]