Sade is 17 and works as a youth activist for YWCHAC, a program for and by young women of color that helps foster their development in advocacy training while providing them with the skills to be effective peer-educators to youth on the subject of sexual health. Their mission is to address the increasing rates of HIV infection in young women of color ages 13-24. Sade does a lot of community outreach and events that help develop partnerships with individuals and organizations that have similar goals, events like annual sexual health summits, safer sex education parties, advocacy and STD (STI) workshops, and other community projects.
I got the chance to ask Sade about what she does, why she does it, and what she thinks about some of the issues that impact HIV and young women. I've shortcut my own questions to give her words the spotlight, because she's got some phenomenal things to say that so many people really, really need to listen to.
On what she wants people to know about young women and color and HIV:
I feel that people need to know that their health should always be top priority. The sad thing about doing this work is that many people don’t even know what HIV or AIDS stands for or how, where or how often to get tested. Some adults don’t even know how to use condoms. But that’s why we exist: we care. I feel that as young women of color we need to start caring about our bodies and our image because if don’t care for ourselves no one will. But first we have to create a system where there are sexual health resources for all teens. When you look at the statistics it shows that black and Hispanic women are 29% of NYC female population and together we represent 86% of NYC women living with HIV/AIDS. So the main thing that I want to get across is that prioritizing is the key to fighting this disease.
On what she feels the biggest barriers are for young women of color when it comes to HIV, with prevention, treatment and the whole context of their lives, particularly taking the impact of institutionalized racism into account:
I believe the biggest barrier for us to overcome, combined with our sociopolitical status, is the lack of resources we have in communities of color. This does not only stand for protection against STDs but in all other aspects of our lives. We, as women and as people of color, are disproportionally underrepresented and we lack a sufficient understanding of what we need and what we have a right to. How are we supposed to know what’s wrong if we don’t know what’s right? I feel that the best way to tackle this is by having a voice and mobilizing with people who have bigger voices. If we knew what we should have then we wouldn’t settle for less and that’s what it’s all about. We need to make sure that we are heard and our needs are being met.
On what messages she feels young women need to be getting about HIV:
Young women need to understand that our bodies are our temples and just like we would treasure a gift that we’ve waited so long for, we need to treasure our bodies 100 times better. Young women need to understand that HIV is not a foreign disease and not a gay disease. There are a lot of stigmas associated with HIV infection. I feel that this misconception comes from the media where the science and health channels only depict Africa or some other third world country as plagued with HIV/AIDS, when in fact, NYC is plagued just as well with the disease. There is a lack of sex education even our health teachers in school have on this subject. Many people still walk around with the “1980’s mentality” that HIV can only infect gays and you can tell a person has HIV based on appearance.
On how cultural and media messaging impacts girls, their self-care and HIV:
I definitely feel that the media plays a big role in the way we view ourselves, the way we treat our bodies and the way we allow others to treat us. Many of us don’t like to admit it, but we are impressionable and naïve. The media preys on this by distorting our view on priorities, between right and wrong, and ultimately our value systems. They teach boys that it’s okay to demean women and they teach girls that it’s okay to be demeaned. We are forced to be submissive and conform to gender norms that teach us to put ourselves second. And here is when priority becomes distorted and our sexual health falls by the wayside. It’s all about prioritizing.
On being an activist in this arena:
The work has been great! Although there are times when I feel defeated or worn out. At the end of the day, it’s the gratification of knowing that I’m just not doing something to help someone else but I am potentially changing things for myself and others like me. That’s what motivates me - to know that I’m representing a whole class, gender, and race of people that may not be as fortunate to have the resources I have to do the outreach and to be liberated. As far as challenges, I don’t face many challenges in my line of work. I find that people seem open-minded and respectful to a young black female teenager who is knowledgeable and passionate.
On getting started as a young activist:
If another young person would want to take action like I have, I’d say ask around for organizations or programs that mobilize on the issues that you’re interested in and if it seems like you can’t find one, or if you’re the radical type, then start your own. You’d be surprised to know how effective and successful many youth-led and youth-run organizations are.
On envisioning and imaging a better world:
I honestly don’t like thinking about my ideal world because when I do I become more open to all the other issues that people have to deal with on a day to day basis. It kind of makes me depressed. However, I do like anticipating a day when a new policy is passed that is a reflection of my hard work. When I look forward to my small goals, it motivates me to go further and deeper into my advocacy and outreach.
This post is part of the blogtour for the SPARK Summit, happening in New York on October 22nd. Tomorrow's stop on the tour is at Our Bodies, Ourselves. SPARK -- Sexualization Protest: Action, Resistance, Knowledge -- is both a summit and a movement designed to push back against the increasingly sexualized images of girlhood in the media and create room for whole girls and healthy sexuality. SPARK engages teen girls as part of the solution. The Summit works with and highlights girl leaders and activists to jump start an intergenerational movement.
The holidays are here and you know what that means! Well, if you're a person of color in an interracial relationship, it may mean having to sit through yet another uncomfortable, racially-charged conversation with your significant other's fam. I know I have, and December's barely here. When your significant other's (SO) parents tell you that they wished they had an African American relative in their ancestry, just to spice things up a bit, and then correct themselves to say that, really, any person of color would do--you've got a problem on your hands. Or when they joke about how they "thought you were Mexican" when you're Japanese (both are comments that I've encountered in the course of my dating history), playing on the 'they all look alike' myth, haha--Not. So while one of the best parts of being in a new relationship has been being made a part of my SO's family, the hardest part about being in a new (interracial) relationship is the culture shock of getting to know the people who your partner calls family.
Where does the problem arise? Often, it's as simple as being the only non-white and/or culturally 'other' person within a family of white people. I'm already the outsider, being slowly and somewhat clumsily drawn into their cohesive family--on top of that, I'm the racial outsider as well. Because of our different upbringings, we have different cultural experiences to draw from. When they do things together, like go to a tree farm to cut down a Christmas tree, or go to an All-American high school basketball game where the men are the ones playing ball and the women are the ones cheering them on (two things I never did when I was growing up), I feel like I've walked into a J. Crew catalog or a TV sitcom or something. In those moments, I feel apart from everyone there who know the ins-n-outs of cutting and trussing a tree or what cheer to say when. I have to shake myself and remember that my narrative is just as valid and valued as theirs.
Other times, it happens when I'm the only non-white person and we start talking about something related to POC. I think that I've rarely felt so much like a POC until a white person brings up race. Then I spend the rest of the conversation on my toes, at the tip of my chair, worried that someone will say something messed up, and that I'll be faced with the choice of speaking up and offending someone (and not just anyone, but my SO's second cousin Polly, or whoever) or keeping silent and letting the racist comment go unacknowledged. In other settings, where the people I would be challenging are my age and my peers--not the relatives of my SO--I would be less hesitant to speak up. But somehow, speaking up for myself against his family seems like I'm not only challenging one of them, but the whole collective unit, which is much more daunting.
I'm still working on speaking my convictions, even though it's intimidating, because that's what's most important to me and hopefully to you too. Remember, you have no duty to stand by and be offended because of some obligation to your SO. A good partner would want you to be comfortable and be able to be yourself. It helps to talk to them and communicate how you're feeling, otherwise they may have no clue that you're angry or uncomfortable. If it's their family that's being offensive, then it's their responsibility to do something about it too, whether that be talking to an individual family member, speaking up in a group, supporting you, or all of the above.
Ultimately, YOU are not the one who needs to change. The people who are spouting racist comments are the ones who should be changing their ways and accommodating to you. Good luck!
Are you in an interracial relationship? Do you have the hots for someone of another race? Attraction is all well and good until someone gets targeted for their race. Here’s the scoop: attraction is different than fetishism. People can have fetishes about all kinds of objects and acts, which can be part of a normal, healthy sexuality. Fetishes about people—particularly about specific races—are more complex than having a fetish about feet or breastfeeding, for example. Let me give my distinction between attraction to those of a certain race and fetish. Attraction is finding a person beautiful or sexy, part of which may be their race. A fetish is finding an object (or a huge, diverse category that someone perceives as an object, like say, race for example) sexy. The key here is looking at the whole person, not how their racialized characteristics fit into your preconceived expectations of them, and seeing that person as a person, not as an object.
Another distinction is that fetishes are associated directly with sex and sexual desire, and attraction does or doesn't have to progress to sexual desire. So a good rule of thumb is that if you see someone of a particular race that you’re attracted to and immediately think about sex, you should stop and try to take apart what’s going on. Why do you find this person attractive? What leads you to think about sex? If ‘race’ is a big answer to both of those questions, you probably want to pursue this and figure out what it is you’re really looking for in a relationship or sexual partner.
Why are racial fetishes damaging? Because when someone with a racial fetish has sex with a person of color, they may be thinking of their partner in terms of their race alone--a degrading essentialization--and they also often attach racial stereotypes to that essentialization. Some examples are: "Black men are sexually insatiable" or "Asian women are naughty school girls." Clearly, if someone holds one of these stereotypes and this is all they see in their sexual partner(s), this is problematic.
However, fetishes usually hide themselves in more subtle disguises. Simply thinking that your partner, who is a person of color (POC), is exotic can be negative as well. The history of labeling POC, particularly women of color, as ‘exotic’ has been a painful and racist one. For example, part of dehumanizing the native Hawaiians so that their land could be stolen by white colonizers was proving that they were ‘uncivilized.’ Painting a picture of the Hawaiians as naked, sexually promiscuous, exotic creatures was one of multiple ways of proving that, deep down, they were just savage barbarians who needed outside help. Clearly this was far from the truth; the native Hawaiians had a rich, developed civilization, despite not resembling white European civilization. This rationalization also gave white colonizers what they saw as the prerogative to sexually exploit and rape native women. Today, calling someone exotic may seem like a positive thing on the surface, but underneath it has the effect of making POC the ‘other’, and placing them in an inferior position on the racial hierarchy.
I'm not saying you shouldn't engage in any sort of racialized play or fantasy, just that this should never happen without consent from your partner(s), particularly your partner(s) of color. Getting consent from them ideally involves having intensive, difficult conversations over the course of the relationship about how you feel in the proposed situations. It should go without saying that if anyone doesn’t feel comfortable with a particular act, scene, or dynamic, it should be called off (indefinitely, or until they take the initiative to propose it again).
The reason that this whole topic is so sticky is that it forces us to think about the racial hierarchy we’re all a part of (whether we choose to be or not) in and outside of the bedroom or wherever else it is that you have sex. Not every interracial relationship is the same because our identities are made up of so much more than race (such as gender, sexual orientation, class, etc.). All of these factors contribute to making each relationship incredibly complex. We can’t use one measuring stick for all relationships. Try talking to your partner(s) about race even if you don’t think you’re having problems. A good exercise would be to read this together and take the discussion from there. If you have questions about your particular situation, feel free to use the comments section or start a thread on our discussion boards.
Okay, quick quiz: What do these things have in common? Getting accepted into college, meeting people for the first time, walking down the street in your neighborhood, going to the airport. Answer: In all these situations, your race affects how you are perceived and treated by others, as well as your own outlook on the situation. This doesn't only go for people of color (POC), but everyone. Okay, now I'm going to blow your mind: everyone has race, even white people! It sounds silly, but people forget this all the time. Race is a big part of who we all are as individuals, and logically, it also factors into our sexual relationships in a major way.
The reason that race is such a big issue comes from our long history of racism: slavery, genocide (see Jessica Yee’s post), rape, persecution, the list goes on. That kind of history doesn't just go away. And it's reflected in the more subtle (but still destructive) racism that POC regularly experience in the United States today. Because everyone is part of the racial system, racism is an issue that we all need to address. However, just because we all 'have race', doesn't mean that it affects us the same way or that we all have equal racial status. Race is actually in charge of creating many of the inequalities in our society, and so depending on our identities, getting rid of racism (race's ugly cousin) may look different from person to person.
There are many strategies for fighting racism in our relationships and in society. I'm personally a big fan of talking it out. I hope that the space here at Scarleteen can be a place where the issues of race and sexuality can be hashed out and discussed, and opinions on how to move forward can be shared. In order to make this happen, this needs to be both a 'safe' space, meaning that we feel that we can share our experiences and thoughts without fear of being made fun of or attacked, but also what one of my teachers calls a 'brave' space, meaning that in order to take something away from this we have to be brave enough to push ourselves and others.
Being able to talk about race and sexuality and all the delightful, messy, painful things that go along with it means first being able to talk about race. So I'll start off by sharing something about myself. I'm hapa, which means 'half' in Hawaiian, where I was born and raised. I had a lot of trouble with my identity growing up (still do sometimes!) because I knew that my racial identity was so much more than being the sum of two halves. It didn't help when I picked up and moved from Hawaii to Seattle, which threw me off on the whole culture thing too. I'm still in the process of working everything out for myself.
Not only were my parents in an interracial relationship, but I currently am too. My partner is white, and we're both a part of a very small student group that does, among other things, anti-racist and sex education work. Yep, it gets pretty interesting sometimes, to say the least! Hopefully, I'll be sharing more on this later.
But now it's your turn. Tell us about yourself, your identity/experiences (if you want), if you have any questions or issues you want to discuss here. The goal of this is to create a more clearly defined 'racial space' on Scarleteen, because as we already learned, race is an issue that affects all of us albeit in different ways. Oh, and I'll probably be posting to this section weekly about whatever strikes my fancy (which is a lot) so check back in soon!
If you are in Italy these days and spend some time watching the news and talking to Italians, you'll notice that there is one topic on everyone's minds and that's rape. In the past few months, there has been extensive media coverage of several rapes that have been perpetrated in the big cities. There has been a huge public outcry coupled with a large demand for more police presence and tougher punishments for rape. Just last week, Prime Minister Berlusconi responded by passing emergency laws to deal with the situation.
From the Kaiser Health Disparities Report: A Weekly Look At Race, Ethnicity And Health:
Blacks were disproportionately affected by sexually transmitted infection rates in 2007, including chlamydia rates that reached a record high and syphilis rates that increased for the seventh consecutive year, according to a CDC report released on Tuesday, Reuters Health reports (Dunham, Reuters Health, 1/13).
Often, Scarleteen content is quoted within other blogs and articles, and my favorite thing about that is seeing how what we've done here can further other conversations and ideas; how others take some of what we've done in a different direction or to a further point.
Here are a few recent blogs and articles who have quoted or used some of our content to help address an array of topics. To check out the whole of the pieces, just give the links a click.
Newsflash: I'm white. Who cares, right?
Well, I do. Because one thing that means with the work I do is that I hear it, see it, compile it, write it all through the lens of a white person. I can be as mindful, sensitive and careful as I want, but that still doesn't change that.
A friend of mine told me I was a racist because I'm not attracted to people who aren't of the same race as me. I don't really know why this is, I'm just not attracted to them. My friends are from many different backgrounds so I don't think that I am a racist. Is it weird to only be attracted to people that are the same race as me?
I know you guys mostly deal with questions about sex and whatnot, but I figure maybe you can help me here, too. I'm a white female, and my boyfriend is Mexican. I told my friend I wanted to have a baby with him. She immediately came back with a response that our baby would be ugly and spotted because I'm white and he's Mexican. Is that true? Can my baby turn out "spotted" because of our heritages being completely different?
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