© Frank H. Jump
My niece Rosario Dawson has campaigned for the VOTO LATINO group she co-founded as well as P-FLAG.
Library of Congress
Back in the beginning of the AIDS crisis, Buckley suggested all HIV+ Americans get visibly tattooed to warn and protect the public. Very soon after this Machiavellian suggestion, Buckley had a biopsy sent to a laboratory where an AIDS activist from ACT-UP was a technician. When becoming aware it was Buckley’s biopsy, the diagnosis of “Kaposi Sarcoma” was sent out. To Buckley’s horror, that he may have contracted an AIDS related cancer, he was re-biopsied and coincidentally, the same lab tech received the specimen and the same diagnosis was sent. Biopsy Terrorism. Ah. Sweet Revenge. Good riddance to bad karma.
READ No More Mr. Nice Blog’s posting!
ABC Whitewashes Buckley - Neo-Nazis Don’t
Buckley Calls Gore Vidal A “Queer” on Live TV 1968 - But during one of the TV debates at the 1968 Democrat Convention between the highly erudite William F. Buckley, Jr. and the celebrated novelist Gore Vidal, Buckley called Gore a “goddamn queer” and threatened to beat him up. - Sweetness & Light
“Now listen, you queer- stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I’ll sock you in your goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.”—To Gore Vidal, 1968 Ooooh! I’m sure Gore was just shakin’ in his go-go boots!
DC Republican calls us a “leftist blog.”
READ RADAR’S WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY’S GREATEST HITS
Atlantic Yards Camera Club gathering in Bear Garden before action.
The approaching storm.
Katherine McInnis, photographer/teacher who was harrassed by MTA police for using her camera near the Atlantic Yards footprint, joined the fray on Sunday in support of our First Amendment rights. Read more about it in detail at Brit in Brooklyn Blog. Amazing how we live in a country where owning a gun is considered an inalienable right, but documenting our time with a camera is considered subversive. Adrian caught me in his pic here. Here are some more pics from the “action” plus some of my distractions.
© Frank H. Jump
by Miss Poppy Dixon
Sharon Rose (mother), Darryl Matthis (family friend) & Xamayla Rose (sister) in our library raising awareness about the insidiousness of gang influence on urban youth.
Mrs. Rose receiving flowers made by our students.
© Frank H. Jump
Creative Writing teacher Gen Berretta invited the Christopher Rose Community Empowerment Campaign to our school, P.S. 119 The Amersfort School of Social Awareness on Avenue K in Brooklyn. If you don’t remember, Christopher Rose was the young boy who was killed for his iPod in 2005 on Farragut Road in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Since, his mother Sharon Rose and family have created an organization in Christopher’s memory to foster community activism and raise awareness against gang influence on our youth.
The Christopher Rose Community Empowerment Campaign will aim to mobilize community stakeholders and others for support and involvement in activities to increase community awareness of the following:
• The factors that contribute to youth violence
• Occurrences of violence
• The impact of violence
• Strategies for preventing delinquency of adolescents that leads to youth gang involvement and community violence
What color should I die for?
Blue?
Red?
or
Gold?
How old do I grow before my love of the color grows cold?
Help me choose a symbol my friend can die for.
The star?
A Hat?
Or
a hand sign?
It all makes sense?
Who wouldn’t die for a color or symbol?
I would……wouldn’t I?
You can…won’t you?
My baby brother should….. shouldn’t he?
Are these symbols that hold us together, the meaning of life?
Is a color as important as Freedom or a symbol and hand sign as virtuous as Love.
Stop!
What madness have we created.
We fight and die for issues of no meaning.
Gang Life has no future.
No Profit.
No virtue.
No worthy goals.
I choose a life with a future.
I reject mindless commitments to meaningless issues
and conflicts that gang life offers me.
Why should I serve or follow these men who create conflict and hate to the point that it spirals out of control.
Yesterday you were my friend and today you are my enemy because they say you are.
Rubbish!
I will choose my friends, my future, my destiny.
Yes I would die for Freedom.
No I won’t die for your special color,
symbol, hand sign, or street corner.
What kind of brotherhood would ask me to do such a thing?
I reject Gang Life and choose…
Life!
DTL - Gang Intervention.org
Past August Brooklyn AIDS Awareness event further illustrates urgency of this issue in our community.
One of the most sobering illustrations of the disparities in health can be seen when you compare the rates of HIV/AIDS in Central Brooklyn to the rates across the city. In Central Brooklyn (which includes Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights and Brownsville) the proportion of people living with HIV/AIDS is twice the rate of Brooklyn overall and 60% higher than the overall New York City rate. To read more about these health disparities click here.
Check out the latest on Domestic Violence on Bed-Stuy Blog
The Devastating Effects of Verbal Abuse
I’m wondering if I hadn’t gone to last night’s meeting of Imagine Flatbush 2030 - if anyone else would have brought up the issue of AIDS. I did get to meet Gretchen Maneval (Director of Brooklyn College’s Center for the Study of Brooklyn), who seemed equally concerned, after insisting on addressing my concerns with the larger group. If the current demographic trends (increasing Caribbean, African, South-east Asian, Asian, Arabic-Speaking & Eastern European immigrants from lower income brackets) continue, with the existing lack of proper and adequate AIDS related services and education in Greater Flatbush and the NYC Metro Area (as an educator, I’ve personally witnessed too many parents from these cultures choosing to have their children “Opt Out” of an already lackluster NYC AIDS Education & Prevention Curriculum), we could see the rate of HIV infection surpassing those of Sub-Saharan Africa in less than a decade. The rate of HIV infection among the Orthodox Jewish community is also the City’s best kept secret. LGBTQ adolescents are totally ignored in this “new” NYC HIV/AIDS High School curriculum. Not even a mention.
Should I mention that the level of homophobia in this community is palpable?
Yes, I would love a cultural center in Flatbush so artists, like myself, would not have to export their talents. Of course, affordable and safe housing has always been one of the quality of life issues I’ve found relevant to sustainability. Sure, I would rather go to a family-owned restaurant (define family) than a Chili’s for dinner. Yes I would gladly participate and help organize local cultural events like a Junction Unction, but if half of the neighborhood is dying due to ignorance and City agency ineffacacies, hindsight in 2020 will be too late. Haven’t we learned from our NYC HIV/AIDS & long-term surviving activist communities (ACT-UP, Brooklyn AIDS Task Force, etc.) that education is the key to prevention? Abstinence is a pipedream (we know how well that has prevented under-aged pregnancies in our area). Informed decisions about safer-sex behaviours is the key to a healthier tomorrow. Oh yeah… and cycling to work and home-grown terrace tomatoes and basil.
© Estate of Keith Haring
This image was altered for the faint of heart.
“Documenting the epidemic since 1986.”
Read Doug Ireland’s article about French activist Louis-Georges Tin’s UN resolution to decriminalize homosexuality in 75 countries.
