WASHINGTON, DC, December 1 — Progressive Labor Party members today joined a bold group of activists rallying in front of the DC Department of Health to demand housing for the city’s 922 people with AIDS. They are living in shelters or from couch to couch. In a chant aimed at the federally funded program called Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA), we called out: “Housing yes! Racism no! HOPWA wait list has got to go!”
Demonstrators from DC Fights Back and the Metro Washington Public Health Association held signs shaped like homes and took over the sidewalk and median strip. People with HIV need secure housing to adhere to lifesaving medications that reduce the spread of the virus. Homelessness kills!
During World AIDS Day, many organizations hold vigils, educational events, and offer HIV tests and condoms. Meanwhile, liberal politicians make hypocritical pledges they have no intention of fulfilling. All the bosses’ politicians care about is the disease’s destruction of a labor market that they could exploit for profit, especially in Africa.
PL’ers argue that we should use the day to fight racism and build a movement to overthrow the capitalist system, which has created the conditions that has spread the HIV virus among the most exploited people in the world. Condoms and health education may help prevent the spread of HIV, but communism can eliminate the exploitation and poverty that concentrates HIV in the poorest neighborhoods.
Capitalist media goons stigmatize and marginalize people who live with HIV, especially black and Latino workers, women, the mentally ill, and the poor. The bosses use fear, biases and racism to justify not spending money for jobs, health care, and housing. Workers who fall into the stigma trap weaken working-class unity against the bosses.
Underlying most stigmas is racism. While most poor people in the U.S. are white, the media projects a black image of poverty, making it easier for white workers to blame poor people for their problems. In fact, it is capitalism that attacks black families with double the general unemployment rate and triple the poverty rate. Fighting racism is crucial in building global working-class solidarity.
Communism offers a society that expects everyone to contribute their energy and talent to each other without exploitation. It promotes collective responsibility and a sense of community for everyone, regardless of race, sexual orientation, or gender. With communism, people can live happier and healthier lives, not resorting to drugs for self-medication or settling for relationships based on economic necessity and inequality. A society based on economic justice and equality can create the stability and security people need to end HIV.
This July, 30,000 people will attend the International AIDS Conference in DC. We invite friends and members to join the “global village” and the mass mobilization on July 24 to call for communist revolution to end AIDS.
