1. Write an essay discussing why Devon died an untimely death at the age of 33. Make sure to use all the materials on risk, infection, intersectionality, hypermasculinity, homophobia, etc., from our B

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“intersectionality is a term developed by Kimberle Crenshaw, a black feminist law professor at Columbia, to mean "the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage."

With intersectionality, we move beyond the binarism of gender as being about men and women, to a more sophisticated analysis which takes culture's other organizing principles of race, class, national origin, language of origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, etc to talk about discrimination, disadvantage and various types of privileges.

Cultures Organizing Principles: are a series of propositions, agreed upon by a culture, that first groups people together based on some characteristic believed to make them the same or similar, that is then used by the culture to organize or arrange itself.

Race --Race is a culturally constructed category, based on PERCEIVED physical differences, that is used to imply hereditary differences between peoples and to justify various systems of social stratification.

Systems of social stratification are arranged in a hierarchy, which means that categories are arranged vertically, so groups are not seen as different and equal, but rather as different and “Within each class group there are people who hold positions of power and authority and who control resources, and class membership often allows for access to those people in power and to their resources.

Education -- the number of formal years of study a person has had the benefit of completing (to earn a degree)

Ethnicity -- perceived differences in culture, national origin, and historical experience by which groups of people are distinguished from others in the same social environment. Members of ethnic groups see themselves as sharing an ethnic identity that differentiates them from other groups or the larger society as a whole.

Religion--a human universal (found in every culture) social process, often invoking some divine essence, that helps to order society and provide its members with meaning, unity, peace of mind, and the degree of control over events they believe possible.

National origin -- refers to the country a person was born in or where their ancestors came from.

Gender --the cultural manifestation of meanings attached to the biological sexes

Sex --the biological distinction between people

Sexual orientation --a stable erotic preference for one or the other (or various or all types) of biology and/or gendered identities.

Marital status “--whether or not someone is married

Age --the number of years (counted in 365 days) someone has been alive

Physical Abilities -- Physical and or cognitive conditions that affect a person's mobility, physical capacity, stamina, or dexterity. These can involve the brain, vision, hearing, walking, etc.

We will use these organizing principles and the concept of intersectionality to analyze why Kincaid's brother dies at the age of 33 years old.

Questions: In a socially stratified country, which people are on top of the social pile? What cultural organizing principles do they possess? ”

“Heterosexuals

Heterosexuals continue to be affected by HIV. In 2018, heterosexuals accounted for 24% of the 37,832 new HIV diagnoses.e

Heterosexual men accounted for 7% of new HIV diagnoses.

Heterosexual women accounted for 16% of new HIV diagnoses.

People Who Inject Drugs (PWID)

In 2018, PWID accounted for 7% of the 37,832 new HIV diagnoses.f

Men who inject drugs accounted for 4% of new HIV diagnoses.

Women who inject drugs accounted for 3% of new HIV diagnoses.

By Race/Ethnicity

Blacks/African Americansg and Hispanics/Latinosh are disproportionately affected by HIV. In 2018:

Blacks/African Americans accounted for 42% of new HIV diagnoses and 13% of the population.i

Hispanics/Latinos accounted for 27% of new HIV diagnoses and 18% of the population.i

“A number of challenges contribute to the epidemic among Blacks, including poverty, lack of access to health care, higher rates of some sexually transmitted infections, smaller sexual networks, lack of awareness of HIV status, and stigma.7 The mass incarceration of African-Americans has also been shown to correlate with higher rates of infection.

So, after this mini-lesson on HIV-AIDS, we can conclude that Devon died because of his intersectional identities. He was poor, Black, from a poor nation, lacking education, not much access to health care, living with a stigmatized disease. He did not die because he had sex with so many women...in fact, we do not even know how many women he had sex with because we learn at the end of the book that he was gay. In retrospect, we must ask, was Devon *just performing* his hypermasculinity to appear as a heterosexual man, when in fact, he was homosexual and did not want anyone to know it?

If he had adequate health care and lived in the United States, his chances of survival would have been better than his chances of survival in Antigua, but his intersectional identities would have disadvantaged him “especially if he were poor.”

“What is important here is to understand that Devon's personal behaviors are not the reason he contracted or died of HIV-AIDS. Our lives are shaped by a culture's organizing principles that advantage some people and disadvantage others. Plus, one need only have sex with one person who is infected to become infected, and we have no idea how many people Devon actually had sex with because he was not a reliable informant. He SAID he had sex with a lot of women, but he failed to mention that he was a man who had sex with men. Thus, we cannot really trust him to tell us about his sex life. Also, we never really asked him about his sex life, and neither did Kincaid. What we have in this memoir is Kincaid's recollection of what her brother said and did. It seems he was 'acting' like a REAL MAN--that is someone who axiomatically desires having sex with women--for the benefit of his sister and the people in Antigua.

Funerals are rituals, that is they are rites of passage and rites of intensification.

Think about the funerals that you have attended in your life. At funerals, “you often you hear people say that it was too bad they had to get together under "those circumstances," but that it was nice to be together. Funerals are celebrations of a person's life. What makes the experience people have together so good:

The reminice about old times

They tell stories about each other and the person who died that others did not know

There is a lot of emotion

sadness

happiness

tears”

“Funerals mark the change of state a person undergoes from being alive to no longer being alive. Funerals are events that the community use to 'witness' that a person is really dead. The time between death and burial is a liminal period, much akin to the bethrothal (or engagement) of the Masai women, as they young girls make their way across the field, leaving their village and traversing to their husbands, the women who receive her insult her and all her names. They literally tear down her old identity so that she can begin to assume a new one as a wife when she arrives in the new village.

Victor Turner, a famous anthropologist, described liminal periods as that time when people are betwixt and between, neither here nor there, where the regular rules do not apply. Women being mean to each other is probably not allowed among the Masai in normal life, but during the engagement, it is ok. A liminal period is like the border space that separates two areas, two times, to states. In U.S. culture, engagements are also liminal--people are no longer really single, but they are not yet married either and the community “does not have the same expectations for them that they had prior to engagement, when they were single or after, once they are married. Bacheloretter/Bacherlor parties are those times when the regular rules do not apply. BUT, when the regular rules do not apply, things can also go wrong.

The funeral rite is a liminal period where people can show more emotion than they ever do. We say: "boys don't cry," but in reality, no adults are allowed to openly weep. Yet, in a funeral, when the regular rules do not apply people can weep openly and with others. After the community is satisfied that person has died, and respects are paid, then the community often celebrates the life of the person. In the Caribbean, people actually have big parties, sometimes with bands, food and drink. The more popular the person, the more people at the party who intensify their bonds and their relationships with one another.

If you were cousins before the funeral, you are more cousinly afterwards. If you were friends before, you are more friends after.” “No one comes to celebrate Devon because his life and his disease were so stigmatized.

Why does Devon not tell the truth about his sexuality?

Because in Antigua, being gay is so stigmatized, so he performed in a hypermasculine way -- saying that he wanted to have sex with every woman imaginable. But after we find out that he was a gay man, we must wonder if he actually had sex with any women.

People in Antigua (and often in the U.S. and Europe, too) are homophobic--homophobia is a dislike, prejudice or fear of homosexual people.

Hypermasculinity: is a cultural term for the exaggeration of male stereotypical behavior such as an emphasis on physical strength, aggression, and sexuality.

Hence, we cannot conclude that Devon died an untimely death because he was promiscuous or because he had sex with multiple partners. We do not know how many partners he had sex with and it doesn't matter how many people he had sex with. It only takes having sex with one infected person to become infected. Devon dies because he is poor, black and from a poor country in the Caribbean where there is not great access to health care. If “If he were wealthy and living in the U.S., he could take the anti-viral drugs and he would probably still be alive.

The answer as to why did Devon die is because his intersectional identites put him at greater risk of death by HIV AIDS.”