Haitians and AIDS

Does science bear social responsibility, to consider the implications of its speculations and public release of its research?

Consider the following National Geographic News Report, suggesting that AIDS travelled to the US from Haiti:

Scientists led by Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, Tucson, tried to solve the puzzle by tracing back the family history of the virus subtype blamed for the epidemic in North America.

The findings suggest that native Haitians carried the disease back to their island from Africa soon after the virus's emergence there.

These research findings are published in an article is called The Emergence of HIV/AIDS in the Americas and Beyond, and it is available online at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

I first heard this news on NPR, on Science Friday. In their version, the evidence was speculative, and unconfirmed.

A quick search brought up the National Geographic site, whose version of these research findings state that (very nearly confirmed - find quote). And a related article, in 2006, traces the trans-species infection from SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) to HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) to chimpanzees in Cameroon.

Even if these findings are true, the social and political implications of this type of science reporting outweighs any benefit from greater understanding of molecules and pathogens. Research that pinpoints chimpanzees, Haitians, and Africans as the source of AIDS - well, the implications are obvious.

I am not saying that science should suppress information that a people group may find unpalatable. But we live in a world where Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and Haitians are disproportionately incarcerated through the immigration process, detained as prisoners. Whether consciously thought through in the mind of each immigration officer or not, routine incarceration cannot be unrelated to the perception of Haitians as diseased.

My question today is - should science be concerned with the social and political implications of research? Or is this a matter for journalists, an ethical discussion for those who cover science? Are scientists responsible for how and when they release their research?

Science is not neutral. The movement of grant money, the interests of corporations in research and development on some issues/diseases and not others, all impact the flow of knowledge and the choices scientists make.

It is no longer acceptable to consider AIDS a 'gay' disease, but with that group of people too, the association with disease is a short hop to exclusion and general public revulsion, discrimination. The accusation of being disease carriers has a long history in exclusion and genocide, including progroms, the removal of Jews in Europe.

In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, the virus was attributed to the four Hs - homos, haitians (what were the others?). This research reignites that suspicion that poor, dirty people get AIDS.

This is nothing new, and of course it is easy to blame immigrants. It serves nativism to scapegoat immigrants, to dream that all social ills would go away if all the immigrants disappeared. This is as old as the Roman Empire, the Inquisition and pogroms.

What is significant about Haitians today is the sheer poverty of this nation, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, just off the shores of Florida. Furthermore, in an age of national security and hyped up fears about stability, is it wise to have such an unstable country just off the shores of Florida?

I wonder, whatever the noblest goal of science, is it simply irresponsible and unfair to discuss these research findings in public, given these social implications? Especially now that the disease is an established epidemic in humans and its origin is, for epidemiological purposes, irrelevant.

Or is science neutral, and separate from the discussion of racial tropes and harmful narratives. In a world where all things were equal, it would be the task of science to uphold the ethic of open dialog about its research, no matter how inflammatory or controversial the findings. But that is not the world where we live.

Edwidge Danticat

This year, for me, the Book Fair was all about Edwidge Danticat. As it was about Barack Obama last year. Oh yeah, I was fortunate enough to see him in a small auditorium, probably won't ever have that opportunity again!

I bought just one book, a copy of Edwidge Danticat's Brother I'm Dying. Of course I stood in line to get it signed.

Danticat read that Sunday afternoon, she read the chapter that recounts her uncle's detention, and subsequent death in custody.

Joesph Dantica lived a generous life as family patriarch and pastor. He was chased by death threats from the country he refused to leave, and treated like a common criminal in the country where he came (with a valid visa) to find safety. That kind of gut wrenching loss is hard to stomach, and I remember closing my eyes as she read, as if to look away. That story did make international news, I was living in Brussels then and read that story in the International Herald Tribune.

I am tempted to despair, it does all seem too much, too big. But, I think now that love is clearly the stronger. My heart aches for that injustice, and I feel restlessness, not closure, or any sense of faith about persecuted prophets and their heavenly reward.

I try to reach for stories of family, of love and tradition, to dwell on the way her family clung to each other. That makes it bearable somehow.

I feel for Haiti, a beleaguered place, and I suppose I take it personally because I too am black, Caribbean. There but for the grace of God go I.

In the Q and A afterward, someone asked Danticat if she found it difficult to write about Haiti, since so few people know about the country and its history. Danticat replied that this was ridiculous. Haiti has its unique, particular history, like every other country. Haiti is unique and therefore Haiti is like any other people and place, whose stories are meant to be told.

Kerry, who asked that question, happens to be an acquaintance and afterward she explained what she did not properly express in her question. She was referring to the US occupation, CIA shenanigans, and the fuckups of foreign intervention, a confusing history, some of which is shrouded in secrecy.

And some of this foreign intervention was purposeful. The 18th century world certainly did not want a free black nation to exist, far less to thrive. As CLR James, a Caribbean historian, pointed out, it is no accident that a nation of black people became the first independent republic in the New World. That nation is, today, the poorest. It's easy to be glib about it, and say that people need to stop blaming colonialism or the global economy and pull themselves up out of poverty. I'll let the ludicrousness of that idea sink in.

Thinking about Kerry's question a bit later, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver came to mind. The murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first president of an independent Congo, was the backdrop to that story. Heart of Darkness may be a faint memory from 11th grade English class, and readers may not be clear on all the details of the Congo's history. Economic and political injustices are disturbingly true, hard for the reader to face, but the specificity of the region's history does not detract from the power of the coming of age story, the family drama, you know, the universal themes.

In Miami Haitians are disproportionately incarcerated if irregularities arise in the immigration process. Danticat has written op-eds on this subject, one just after her uncle's death in the New York Times, called A Very Haitian Story.

This is difficult to think about. Still, the beauty of good writing, and the truths about human experience that good art reveals, that won't make the pain go away, but somehow telling stories helps keep us going.

Books and Books

An aside: Books and Books is another wonderful discovery in this city by the sea. I've been hanging out there lately, and discovering that the arts scene in Miami is perhaps not as well known as other cities, but once I scratch the surface it's positively teeming with life!

I've got to visit the Miami Beach store, haven't been there yet. I've got some pictures from Coral Gables, I think this is one of the most beautiful bookstores I've ever been to. Have visited many charming, captivating, treasure filled bookstores, but I think this is the most gorgeous.

Miami Book Fair

24th annual Miami Book Fair International this weekend. Really looking forward to it!

My first stop tomorrow will be Amiri Baraka reading, and it just gets better from there. I'm most excited about Edwidge Danticat, I read Brother, I'm Dying in October and loved it very much.

Big hitters in politics will be there too; Chris Matthews will stop by on his book tour, as did Barack Obama last year, George Soros, Wesley Clark and many more. I am curious to know what Matthews' voice sounds like close up, if he yells in small rooms as well.

One friend in my writing class, who has lived in Miami for a long time, commented that the Fair has gotten more political in recent years. Now that city and state funding have increased, through Miami Dade College, the selection of authors feels more political to her. I'm not sure what she meant by that, it seems to be a broad spectrum of perspectives. Of course, as a newcomer I have no comparative framework. Just plain old fashioned never see come see, as we describe wide eyed naive wonder in Trinidad.

Mitchell Kaplan, the founder of Books and Books, that rare bird known as an independent bookstore, touched on that subject today in an NPR interview. Inviting speakers from a breadth of political viewpoints is the ethos of the fair, and has been since its inception. Of course, this is Miami, and so I imagine the boundaries of this agora would exclude anything even remotely pro-Fidel.

I'm trying not to disdain the process. I'm still writing, more poetry than prose lately, and I like the freedom in that. I am not a poet, and I give myself much more leeway for awfulness, I almost expect it of myself. Whereas writing prose, especially nonfiction, I feel so worried, that what I'm saying is somehow wrong, not insightful enough, not forceful enough, too whiny, too self consumed :)

In the weeks since I've committed to writing every day (that would be since August) I have become less consumed by how good my writing is (it's not).

If I could put it a bit more eloquently, I would say that I'm learning to approach the blank page with humility, to let unknowing lead the way.

Writing poetry and performing really help; I don't get tied up as I do with essay writing, I can let myself be really bad at it. I love essays, but perhaps it is too much to expect at this point, coming from the days when I couldn't even write a sentence without sturm und drang.

Slowly, slowly.

The strain is still there, the paralysis over what I should write about (race, economics, politics - my father's line of work. Freudian. I know.) I keep feeling like I should write about blackness. And God. I fear offending the Big Woman Upstairs as much as I fear offending the ideals of identity politics. I feel like my views aren't strident enough, that I have to be overtly political or else it's just tripe. That's the monkey I've gotta throw off my back.

Speaking of which, in a completely unrelated thought, does anyone know if 'Straighten Up and Fly Right' is an encoded drug reference? I've always wondered that, since I learned the lingo from The Autobiography of Malcolm X all those years ago (in the Spike Lee years). My friend and teacher SteveG has a schtick at the beginning of his classes, where he allows students to ask him anything, literally anything at all. Should ask him that one.

I once read a Garrison Keillor piece on about this sort of agonizing (it wasn't 'Writers, Quit Whining!, but that's a good one.) In this piece he wrote that worry about whether writing is good or not suggests that you probably shouldn't be writing. Instead, the important question is whether the writing is true.

Words to remember, as I face the blank page and develop the courage to speak truth.