readers, please comment - conversation with conservative reporter

so, i've been corresponding with this reporter from my local island newspaper (conservative haven for mostly rich, white people) and he asked me to send him some pics from my time in Thailand to print with a story he's writing about me regarding the fellowship I won to return to Thailand later this year. All good and fine, until I mentioned I had some pictures of me at protests against US policy/big pharma but didn't send them to him because I didn't think the people reading the Ile Camera would appreciate them. He responds with: (note the red-blue color scheme here)

I can't stand when people protest the U.S. when there are Americans like yourself giving up so much to help others. We are not a perfect nation, but we do care....you are a fine example of everything that is good about our country.

Fine, but I felt like I had to respond, so I did, with this long email:

Well, actually they are mostly pictures of me with (many) others protesting the US government and/or pharma...and im very happy that ppl are protesting since i disagree with a vast majority of what our administration is doing both at home as well as abroad. As the president's polls continue to fall, I think it becomes clear that he's not acting in the interest of people. Although I am very proud to be American and love my country, I feel that what I love most about it is that I am able to express my opinion and dissent against US domestic and foreign policy. I think most great change is about people speaking up and speaking out against what is happening ( e.g. civil rights, AIDS activism, environmental activism, etc.) and it's a shame that this administration tries to portray those who are protesting (including myself) about any issue - including immigration, now - as 'unpatriotic' and not caring about the country.

Although i don't really want to get started in a discussion about politics, i can say from a scientific and public health perspective that this administration has been terribly backwards (for example, the Global Gag Rule, prohibiting funding from going to organizations who even talk about family planning in the developing world, discounting the importance of condoms in controlling the AIDS epidemic, trying to shut down trials with gay, HIV-positive patients, abstinence-only education, bilateral free trade agreements that extend US patents to make essential medicines even less available for dying people in the developing world, etc.), and many great people have resigned from the FDA, CDC, and other organizations to protest US policy.

Why I do this...I can try to locate an essay I wrote about some stories and people/experiences I've had...why I do this is an interesting question and one I recently discussed with a fellow activist who was in Geneva lobbying at the WHO. For many of us, the answer is there isn't much of a choice - once you know the facts, including the fact that antiretroviral therapy for HIV is now available for less than one US dollar a day, and yet people don't have access to this and are dying, by the millions, because they can't afford it, I feel that you must be moved to do something. I mean, you can ignore it, and that's what many people do, but I feel that some people just see that (like Time's 2006 People of the Year, Bono, and Bill and Melinda Gates) and are moved to take action. Furthermore, I feel like, we as the US (and other developed countries) are essentially telling people in Africa and Asia and wherever that their lives are not worth one dollar a day to us, and frankly, according to us, they're not. That makes me terribly angry.

Another reason I do this is because, while I was a HIV testing counselor at Chulalongkorn Hospital, I gave positive results to many women my age who maybe had slept with one boyfriend or a few men, and because the prevalence for HIV is higher in Thailand, they were finding out that they were HIV positive. My age. Going to college in the US, many of my friends (and we're some of the most highly educated people here) had slept with many more people, done many more 'stupid' things in the moment, and I'm pretty sure none of them have been infected with HIV. Chlamydia and gonorrhea are increasing among college campuses today, but HIV is still not a big scare for young people in the US.

Furthermore, lots of people I knew in Thailand were infected by their husbands. This comes down to just being unlucky, or born into a country where there are many people infected with HIV, or just circumstance. If, for example, a few select people at University of Michigan undergrad were infected with HIV, there could be a raging epidemic there within months. Because the prevalence is so low, this is unlikely to happen, but I feel that it's just unfair that the highest risk factor for a woman getting HIV in Africa now is getting MARRIED. It's not as if 'those' people in Asia and Africa are much more promiscuous - indeed, I feel like they aren't. It's just that a certain number of people have HIV, and it's the luck of the draw who you end up sleeping with.

Re: grief, pain, and suffering. Humans are incredibly resilient people. I think I try to look at the positive side of things and just try to act in solidarity with the people I work for and with...it means an amazing amount to people to show that you simply care about them and their well-being, and they're not expecting you to change their lives, they just appreciate that you're there. i was originally concerned about people not taking me seriously (or just being unwelcoming) as i come from an extremely privileged background and dont know what it's like to be poor, or hungry, or addicted to drugs, or HIV positive. But everyone has generally been great, and excited that a young person is interested in helping them and their cause.

I think another factor in things is that my parents both grew up very poor in villages in Thailand. My father went to a village school but was able to come to the US and open a successful practice in Monroe. My mother was orphaned at age eight and has been through a tremendous amount and now lives on Grosse Ile, works as a nurse and office administrator with my dad. Their story is really amazing. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of racism in the Downriver area and I think that made me angry growing up, so I just worked really hard to leave and prove something to others. That's not a driving force in my life right now, but I think being second generation Asian American is and trying to help people that are less fortunate definitely comes from my parents, in many ways.

So I get up this morning and here is his response:

OK,
First things first. We better not get into a political conversation. I am a very conservative thinking person that expects people to take responsibility for their own lives. I don't believe in big govt. I believe in the govt. protecting us. And you can complain all day long about Bush and Iraq but the world changed on Sept. 9. We have to go on the offense and start killing these lunatics or it will happen again.

As far as our involvement in the fight against aids and poverty, well, where would the world be without the U.S. Please don't send me any pictures of people protesting the U.S. because me and many americans over the age of 25 are sick of it. Maybe we should take back all our money and our aid and all our efforts and tell the world to go to hell. Is that what people want. We remove a brutal dictator who murders thousands of his own people and we are protested. Sadam can kill thousands and torture millions and it's OK. But if we don't sign some BS global warming treaty, we are evil.

The U.S. bashing has become an insult. I am sick of it. I can see you over there helping people and ripping on your country at the same time. I hope they say thank you to you because they spit on me...and the money I give each year in taxes.

I respect your opinions and understand you have a different perspective. You see a young boy dieing of AIDS and you blame the U.S. You think it's our duty to cure the world and solve the world's problems. I'm telling you it's not. God forbid you blame the curropt governments that steal most of the money we donate in the first place.


OK, I am done. I just wanted to get my two cents in. I do not want this to be a political story in any way. I want this to be on a very special young lady who has done more in this world already than most do in a lifetime.

ps - I am a diehard Springsteen fan. I have seen in 42 times in concert and have over 500 bootlegs. But why people listen to his political views are beyond me. He is a junior college dropout, a billionare 10 times over and basically believes in socialism except when it comes to his money. And he blames Republicans for everything. Katrina was all Bush's fault. The incompetence of the mayor and governor (both democrats) never questioned. OK, now I am done.

pss- Now don't you respond to any of my comments. Because I don't want to get into a pissing match how much the U.S. sucks and everything is our fault. Just call me ignorant and move on. Trust me, I have been called worse.

psss - Now send me that essay. I can't wait to read it.

I respect (but obviously don't agree with) his opinions, but what I'm really offended over is what he says in his postscripts, especially the second one. The Springsteen thing refers to a link I sent him on an article in The Nation regarding protest music. The second thing that pisses me off is that he's a reporter and he misspells a ton of things in his email that are clearly not typos (for people who know me well, I am obsessed with spelling and was a former spelling bee champ :) )

I feel like it's totally unprofessional (we talk about professionalism all the time in a somewhat superficial way during medical school, but seriously) and I don't necessarily want to engage him in a political conversation but I do want to be like, you just don't talk to people like that, especially in a professional capacity. Like can you imagine if I, as a physician, told my patient to NOT RESPOND to any of my comments?

Also, I never said that everything was the US's fault, but we do a lot of things to make medicines more difficult to access in the developing world and by dying people even in our own country. Who doesn't agree that the health care system in the US is totally messed up?

So, what I'm asking you all who read my blog to do is to put in your two cents about how I should respond to this guy. I don't want to talk politics with him, but I do want to say something and I don't feel like he would be addressing me in this way if I wasn't 25 years old, which is ageist, but true. Also, keep in mind that he's writing an article about me in the Ile Camera, which my parents will buy and like 5 people they know on the island may read, so it's not like it matters.

Let the posting begin. If you actually read this, please post even if you only have two seconds - I have no idea who actually reads my blog and would love to get some feedback before I write my response.