Our aim in this article is to offer a preliminary defense of the claim heard frequently these days that poor African American men are subjected to conditions of life that are sufficiently destructive to amount to an instance of genocide. To make our case, we define the term genocide and apply measures of this phenomenon to the life experiences of poor black American men. Our focus is on grossly disproportionate death rates among this group, which we examine as one of a number of products of social deprivation.

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Black genocide? Preliminary thoughts on the plight of America’s poor black men

his essay explores why it is that some lawyers choose to advocate for people who are HIV posiT tive, have AIDS, or suffer from tuberculosis. Essentially, I propose to explore the response to the question, “How can you represent those people?” (“those people” meaning the carriers of a latter-day plague). The answer I will suggest is that by advocating on behalf of the HIVand TB-infected, lawyers promote the interests of society. Advocates do this by focusing attention on the underlying causes of the spread of disease instead of on the scapegoating of plague victims. Public interest lawyers have been asked variants of this question for years.’ Recently, however, as the threat of AIDS and TB has continued to grow, the tone of the “how can you?” question has become sharper and more accusatory. This may be because “those people” now includes people who are despised and feared: HIVpositive addicted pregnant women; HIV-infected gay men; homeless alcoholics or alcoholic couples; and ex-prisoners with AIDS. These people have been largely despised and often ignored. Because of the resurgence of TB, they are also feared. Unlike HIV and AIDS which are not easily acquired and are spread through voluntary and intimate conduct, TB, because it is airborne, can be transmitted in public places. The emergence of multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB) has heightened this fear of contagion because MDRTB can be difficult to treat and is potentially fatal. Accordingly, the tone of the question has taken on an edge of impatience: the poor, after all, no longer have “problems”, they have diseases that are casually communicated and can be fatal. In their alarm, those who pose the “how can you?” question suggest that “those people”despised outsiders that they are-are expendable, or, if not expendable, possessed of rights that are so inferior to those enjoyed by the rest of us that society is free to curtail them with impunity. The question “how can you?” is answered by the lawyer’s traditional role as advocate for the individual and as voice for the voiceless in public policy discussions. Unfortunately, the very question “how can YOU” suggests, one-sidedly, that advocates for the poor are obstructing efforts to combat and control HIV and TB, as if civil liberties and the public health were choices in a zero-sum game, or, as if advocates were unconcerned with the public-or, for that matter, their own-health. But this notion-that advocates do not care about the public health or, indeed, would obstruct efforts to secure it-is based on a lack of understanding about how this public health crisis grew and about what advocates suggest to stem it. Rather than being in the way, I will argue that advocates present a voice and perspective that can help facilitate efforts to resolve the AIDS and TB epidemics. This essay attempts to explain how those voices and perspectives came into being, what they stand for, and what they can contribute to the fight against HIV and TB.

Legal Advocacy in a Time of Plague

The issue of whether or not an individual has the right to choose when he or she will die, is a very controversial one for many reasons. Further complicating the issue is the question of who, if anyone, has the right to decide for those who are unable to choose for themselves. The bibliography which follows includes articles which discuss this topic from a right to privacy perspective, and should prove useful to those researchers who are new to the subject, as well as those who are already familiar with the many complex issues involved.

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The Right to Die as an Issue of Privacy: A Selective Bibliography

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/216507999003801107

Elizabeth G Patterson

Papers

Health care choice and the Constitution: reconciling privacy and public health.