New York Lawmaker Calls Lack of AIDS Funding ‘Genocide’
New York state Assembly Deputy Speaker Arthur Eve (D), the highest-ranking African American in the Legislature, argued at a Senate-Assembly budget hearing on Monday for the state to provide more funding to minority-run AIDS groups and other health organizations, the
Bergen Record reports. "If I went to the U.N., I could make a case the state of New York is making a genocide against black and brown people and it's mainly in the health and the prevention and the educational area." He added that
African Americans "make up 85% of the prison population ... and 90% of the AIDS cases. We have a monumental task to try to turn these figures around before we have a zero-growth population in our community." Eve said that a "disproportionate amount of state and federal funding for AIDS" is given to local agencies headed by white people, and noted, "Minority-run agencies could have a greater sensitivity and reach into that community because of their investment and their own self-interest." State Health Commissioner and former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Antonia Novello "quickly disputed" Eve's remarks, saying that 77% of state health programs are targeted for the minority population, even if local groups using funds are not headed by minorities. She explained that seemingly disproportionate funding is the result of federal rules that restrict the definition of "minority-operate
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