Attitudes About Law and Street Harrassment vs. Stigmatization in the AIDS Crisis

I read the Musheno and the Nielsen articles. It struck me thatboth of these essentially discussed how despite legal guarantees for equal rights in America, there are groups who are not afforded equality in society, including large agencies.

The Musheno article discussed People With AIDS (PWA) who contracted the virus from intravenous drug use and PWA who were gay. Both of these groups essentially had some sense of self-blame in addition to being blamed for their condition by others. This lead to being let go from employment, and refusal of medical help.

Nielsen's article discusses racist and sexist comments made in public places, and how they are perceived among races, classes, and genders. This article isn't so much about organizations discrimination but about discrimination as a social issue. The question raised by Nielsen is at what point does freedom of speech end and a person's right to feel safe and not discriminated against begin? She contends that perhaps street harrasment should be more of a legal issue than it currently is, because it creates a pattern of discrimination.

I found it interesting after reading these two articles how much equlity is still such a huge issue today. I guess it's easy to forget how much of society refuses to acknowledge some groups as being just as equal as anyone else. I also think it's interesting to examine these in a legal context. There is very little legal action to limit street harassment. To some extent this makes sense as it would be very difficult to enforce any laws, but regardless, to date, I have never heard of even an attempt. But more shocking to me was that employers continue to get away with this, and as I read about employers letting go of their employees after they were diagnosed with AIDS I couldn't help but remember Galanter, and think that these people were probably wronged even under the law, but they simply had not bothered to take action because if they did they would be the "one shotters" going up against the "repeat players." And I guess that's what it all comes down to. Too often people can only utilize the law at great detriment to themselves. Whether that means public announcing their sickness, or a risky financial investment that they are likely to lose anyway.