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When asked in the fall of 2000 to be a consultant to an AIDS education and training center at a Pacific Northwest university's health education research center, it was an opportunity long in the waiting. I had been working in the frontlines of HIV/AIDS in Native communities for the last twelve years without much pay! This would be a change, as I knew that working in the ivory tower, one of the last bastions of racism, came with many resources. It was an opportunity to have an impact on AIDS in Indian Country.
The center had received a two-year grant from a congressional act responsible for HIV/AIDS care education in the United States. The center trains health care providers in five northwestern states. The black congressional caucus had agreed with the rest of Congress to reauthorize the almost two billion dollar act, but only if monies were set aside to provide services to minority populations. The administrators of the act had consistently failed to include minority communities in the funding streams for the act; the university went after these minority monies!
During the first year and a half into its two-year grant, the center could not successfully gain entry into the Native communities in the five states it serviced. In desperation I was hired as a tribal liaison consultant, and we were able to coordinate five conferences in three states, with two on reservations. We provided training to two hundred health care providers to Native communities within the remaining six months of the grant.
Apparently impressed with this work, the center hired me as tribal liaison on July 1, 2001. I insisted on similar pay as other employees, mentioning that all those with master's degrees and PhDs were unable to produce in one-and-a-half years what had been produced in the last six months with my help; however, I still received a lower pay rate due to the fact that I did not have a master's degree.
Months later at the annual all-staff retreat, a historic review of the organization by the founder explained that the center had been created to counter male-dominated research. With a commitment to one another for continued employment, the center has hired gender-specific researchers for their gender-dominated organization.
I mentioned that...