Dagmawi Woubshet Analysis

On the last two chapters Dagmawi Woubshet writes about two paintings that break the silence surrounding HIV/AIDS enforcing AIDS awareness. First Woubshet writes about Keith Haring, an American artist and HIV/AIDS activist and his vision of the history of racism. Haring’s painting of Michael Stewart, a young black graffiti artist killed by the police for writing graffiti in the subway in New York represents a protest towards the history of racism lived by black a black American artist. Woubshet mentions “Haring’s painting often incorporate AIDS into a vision of history perennially under siege, replete with catastrophes, a tragic sense of history he shares with African American artists” (85). The painting is a protest blaming Stewart’s tragic death to racism, but he also blames Stewart’s death and AIDS deaths to the
government’s neglect. Cathy Cohen’s reference to “race as it serves as a marker of marginalization and racism” (122) applies to Haring’s vision of racism. Through the painting, Haring shares a connection between the AIDS deaths and the killing of black people by the police. Unfortunately Haring’s vision of police killing young black people continues on everyone’s mind today. Second, Woubshet reflects on Trevor Makhoba’s painting of orphaned children mourning the death of their parents to AIDS in Ethiopia.
Woubshet writes “these children re-create themselves, materializing artifacts that mirror for them and the world a self-willed image” (140). Makhoba’s painting of children carrying a casket represents an image of the children themselves since they may as their parents die of AIDS. Fortunately the children in Ethiopia are assisted by Sudden Flowers, the first AIDS art collective in Ethiopia, to create works of art to facilitate their grief. Many children in Sudden Flowers write letters to the diseased parents. Woubshet call these letters that children use to mourn the death of their parents the epistles to the dead “these texts openly grieve the dishonored dead, and they are produced by subjects themselves graced by HIV/AIDS” (140). Haring and Makhoba’s paintings are a protest in the name of victims like Stewart, the parents in Ethiopia that die of AIDS and the children of the parents that die of AIDS in Ethiopia who are the victims of racism and the government’s attitude towards black people and its indifference towards
AIDS.
I have learned that the number of African Americans diagnosed with HIV continues to increase. The local and national responses to AIDS have been slow that is because African Americans, mostly poor black people in urban cities have been marginalized with limited resources, government underfunding for HIV prevention, no AIDS education and limited government assistance to fight the disease. Furthermore, black community leaders have failed to pressure political leaders to address the epidemic of AIDS in black communities. Just like black leaders resist to being marginalized, they marginalize the black people living with AIDS to protect the image of the African American community. This marginalization of black on black is called secondary marginalization. In addition, the black church marginalizes black gay men and drug users, so black people with AIDS struggle to belong to the black communities. Thus the little or no response like a blind eye from political leaders and church leaders towards AIDS. I wonder if with the newly elected-president the circumstances of black communities are going to get any better or worst.