“Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness:” The Question of Race and National Belonging in Safer Sex Education

Year 2020, Issue: 13, 37 - 74, 24.05.2020

Ivan Bujan

Abstract

Since the first wave of the ongoing AIDS crisis in the USA, there has been a variety of approaches in HIV prevention directed towards diverse audiences: women and men of multiple races and sexual orientations, teenagers, and drug users. However, since gay men’s organizations have traditionally acquired the most funding in the HIV sector, the majority of promotional materials has been centering a representation of young, male, and white figures. This paper touches upon the emergence of the so called “nationalist” genre in safer sex advertising to tackle questions of race, sexuality, and national belonging. Drawing on close analysis of archival ephemera, the paper argues that the visual cultures of this genre correspond with the gradual rise of homonationalist politics in the early to mid-90s that has had a mission to support a creation of an obedient homosexual citizen–consumer. The paper supplements the study of homonationalism by suggesting that public health campaigns oriented towards homosexual audiences have also had a major role in supporting and advertising the politics of inclusion in a white heterosexist majority. When AIDS organizations were faced with inability to tackle the question of race in regards to high rates of HIV among populations of color, they turned to implementing multicultural politics to engage racial politics. However, as the visual analysis of the campaigns shows, the representation of cultural difference merely replicates the visual politics of white gay male cultures, whose proximity to racial and gender normativity is expressed through appropriating the aesthetics of archetypal straight masculinity. Hence, the coinciding promotion of gay male citizenship in the HIV sector amid its attempt to animate the question of race, reflects the impossibility of the multicultural project: while AIDS organizations demonstrate their racial, gender, and ethnic sensibility by including diverse bodies in their HIV programming, they mobilize white male homosexual citizenship modeled upon traditional “heroic” masculinity. By its definition, such a model is not only exclusionary to racial and gender difference, but also beneficial for the maintenance of the U.S. nation-state and its racist, militant, and expansionary goals. The paper argues that multiculturalism in the HIV sector also appears in the service of homonationalism because instead of diminishing racial power hierarchies, it merely resignifies white middle class racial and gender normativity as “diversity.” Incorporation of “cultural minorities” into state-sponsored health protection suggests that the question of race is only skin deep, hence ignoring the problem of political classification systems that produce racial inequalities on a systemic level. Drawing on the statistics that propose that Black communities have been most vulnerable to the virus since the early 1980s, the paper concludes that multiculturalism in the HIV sector is only one system of power that maintains Black death as a fundamental part of Black life and by that reproduces the power hierarchies that sustain status quo.

Keywords

HIV prevention, safer sex, multiculturalism, homonationalism, heroic masculinity, gay clones, anti-Black racism

“Yaşam, Özgürlük ve Mutluluk Arayışı”: Güvenli Cinsellik Eğitiminde Irk ve Ulusal Aidiyet Meselesi

Abstract

ABD’de sürmekte olan AIDS krizinin ilk dalgasından bu yana, HIV’in önlenmesiyle ilgili farklı kitlelere – çeşitli ırklara ve cinsel yönelimlere sahip kadın ve erkeklere, ergenlere ve uyuşturucu kullananlara –yönelik çeşitli yaklaşımlar ortaya çıktı. Ancak HIV sektöründe en fazla fon elde eden çoğunlukla gey erkek örgütleri olduğundan, tanıtıcı materyallerin çoğunluğunda genç, erkek ve beyazlar merkezi konumda temsil edildi. Bu çalışma, ırk, cinsellik ve ulusal aidiyet meselelerini ele almak üzere, güvenli cinsellik reklamlarında “ulusal” tabir edilen türün ortaya çıkışına değinmektedir. Arşiv materyallerinin detaylı analizine dayalı bu çalışma, bu türün görsel kültürünün, itaatkâr bir eşcinsel yurttaş-tüketici yaratılmasını destekleme misyonuna sahip homomilliyetçi politikaların 1990’ların başı ila ortasında kademeli yükselişe geçişine denk düştüğünü ileri sürmektedir. Bu çalışma, eşcinsellere yönelik kamu sağlığı kampanyalarının onları beyaz heteroseksist bir çoğunluğa dâhil etme politikasını destekleme ve özendirme konusunda da önemli bir rolü olduğunu ortaya koymak suretiyle homomilliyetçilik çalışmalarına katkıda bulunmaktadır. AIDS ile ilgili çalışmalar yürüten örgütler farklı ırklardan gruplar arasındaki yüksek AIDS oranları ile bağlantılı ırk meselesini halledemedikleri noktada, ırk politikaları ile angaje olabilmek için çokkültürlülük politikalarına başvurdular. Ancak kampanyaların görsel analizi göstermektedir ki kültürel farkın temsili, ırk ve toplumsal cinsiyet alanlarında normatif olana yakınlığını arketip heteroseksüel erkeklik estetiğini sahiplenerek ortaya koyan beyaz gey erkek kültürünün görsel politikasının kopyası olmaktan ibarettir. Bu nedenle HIV sektöründeki gey eril yurttaşlığın özendirilmesi ile sektörün ırk sorununa eğilme çabasının bir araya gelmesi çokkültürlülük projesinin imkânsızlığının yansımasıdır: AIDS konusunda çalışan örgütler bir yandan HIV programlarına farklı bedenleri dâhil ederek ırk, cinsiyet ve etnik hassasiyetlerini ortaya koyarken, diğer yandan geleneksel “kahraman” erkekliği model alan beyaz eril homoseksüel yurttaşlığı tedavüle sokarlar. Böyle bir model, tanımı gereği hem ırk ve cinsiyet farklarına karşı dışlayıcıdır hem de Amerikan ulus devletinin ve onun ırkçı, savaşçı ve yayılmacı hedeflerinin devamını sağlar. Bu çalışma, HIV sektöründeki çokkültürlülüğün, ırk temelli iktidar ilişkilerini zayıflatmak yerine beyaz orta sınıf ırk ve cinsiyet normalliğini “farklılık” olarak yeniden kodlamanın ötesine geçmediği için, homomilliyetçiliğe de hizmet ettiğini savunmaktadır. “Kültürel azınlıkları” devlet destekli koruyucu sağlık programlarının bünyesine katmak ırk meselesinin ele alınışındaki yüzeyselliği, dolayısıyla da sistemik düzeyde ırk temelli eşitsizlik yaratan politik sınıflandırma sistemleri probleminin göz ardı edildiğini gösterir. 1980’lerin başından beri virüs karşısında en kırılgan grubun Siyahlar olduğunu ortaya koyan istatistiklere dayanan bu çalışma, HIV sektöründeki çokkültürlülüğün, Siyahların ölümünün Siyahların yaşamının asli unsuru olarak kalmasını sağlayan iktidar sistemlerinden yalnızca bir tanesi olduğu ve böylelikle de statükoyu sürdüren iktidar hiyerarşilerini yeniden ürettiği sonucuna varmaktadır.

Keywords

HIV’in önlenmesi, güvenli cinsellik, çokkültürlülük, homomilliyetçilik, kahraman erkeklik, gey klonlar, Siyah-karşıtı ırkçılık

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