In a land far away, many moons ago... before things went ‘viral’ and newsfeeds telling us what to care about, the Phil Donahue Show was a true Huffington Postesque outlet. Sexism, racial tension, economic decline, all topics Donahue stirred in his pot. My young eyes and ears absorbed more facts and realities than they were built to take in. Still, I would sit with my Bagel Bites and Sunkist, the volume on low, eyes wide open, nodding my head when a valid point had been made, or chucking a dry piece of bagel at the screen when someone said something wrong. Or stupid. Or a word I’d yet to learn the definition of. There was a lot of Bagel Bites crumbs thrown at Daddy’s TV on February 13th, 1990.
Peter Staley. Gregg Gonsalves. Robert Garcia. Greg
Harrington. Ann Northrop. And, the man who changed my life, Larry Kramer. Four
gays and a woman. What could have been a great mix for a sitcom ahead
of its’ time is instead a ragtag group of vigilantes for HIV/AIDS research, funding, activism,
and concern. AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP; little did they
know, they had me at coalition). This sincerely frightened group of five were
ready to shout facts, demand research, and take on the audience, the American medical system, and the world. There were
more acronyms than I could keep track of, more facts than I understood. But,
I was a little black girl who could not stop crying. The topic had nothing to
do with me (yet), but I inherently knew that this will have so much to do with the
advocate I would become. I was not wrong.
Eight years after the first 41 people diagnosed of what was
referred to as ‘gay cancer’, society had just enough information to drop the
cancer. Yet, the notion that HIV/AIDS was still a gay disease continued to
linger, allowing the hetero world and hetero America in particular to blow off
concern of the deadly plague because, what’s it got to do with them anyway?
The first cord that struck me was the level of which ACT UP
had organized and informed themselves. This was done not out of leisure, but
fear and desperation. It’s one thing to fight for your own life, another
to fight for the lives of others. And, to do both at the same time? Unheard of,
and previously unseen. Eight year old Tamela knew she was listening to the gospel
from her tribe.
Fast forward 25 years. HIV/AIDS is no longer deemed an
epidemic, rather a chronic disease. While lack of knowledge, medicine, and
research were the biggest dangers in the 80’s and 90’s, the same lack thereof
has been dragged into the new millennium, along with race, and ethnic
disparities. In other words, HIV is continuing to attack the blacks, Latinos,
and queers. As a black Latina queer, this affects me.
The passing of time has not lessened the reality of the
silent killer that no one wants to talk about. I still light a white candle on
the 1st of February to honor the life of Bob Rafsky. I still tear up
when I sit down to read anything written by Larry Kramer. And, I still want to
talk about the spreading of HIV/AIDS and it’s effects on the global community
to anyone who will listen.
While I've maintained a status of HIV negative SEVEN of my loved ones have been diagnosed with HIV. Without realizing it, I've begun to adopt a mentality familiar to Mickey Marcus when he angrily questioned the status of both himself and Bruce Niles, character's from The Normal Heart. Both Mickey and Bruce had lover's who'd died of AIDS and yet, the remaining lover's were presumed to be HIV negative.
Somewhere between fighting for Ryan White's right to use a public restroom, and Magical's Johnson being so fucking rich we forget it has HIV, we stopped talking about it. We stopped wearing our red ribbon. We stopped teaching about the dangers of drugs and mental illness, and how it correlates to the spreading of STIs. We stopped keeping track of who's getting infected to the point where women of color are walking around with a God damned bulls-eye on their forehead. But, most don't know because we stopped talking about it. We stopped rallying. We stopped caring. We stopped taking care of one another. Well, I'm not going to stop. I. AM. NOT. GOING. TO. STOP.The magical one-a-day pill that people in-the-know refer to is indeed magical. It can morph your status into undetectable and give you over 90% chance of keeping the virus to yourself even in situations where you engage in unprotected sex. The one-a-day is awesome. If you have health insurance. And, you take care of yourself. And, you're not so strung out on drugs that you remember (or care to) take them. If you can't check those boxes, then baby, you as good as gone. I know. I've seen it happen.
So, why the fuck did we stop talking about it again?
And, when I refer to ignorant victims, I'm not talking about people living with HIV/AIDS. I'm talking about us. Me. Those of you who, like myself, want to believe that wearing a ribbon and donating to ACT UP during Pride Week is good enough. Thinking that even though we can't eradicate the virus, we've got it 'under control'. I assure you, it is far from controlled. We're victims because this affects us - ALL OF US, whether we acknowledge it or not. And, we're ignorant for simply resting comfortably in our lack of knowledge and action.
I've got more questions than answers. I've got my own bag of misconceived notions about the virus. What it is, what it means, how to treat it, how to control infection. How to help those who've tested positive, while still rallying and protecting those at risk. I'm not really sure how to approach or even discuss it. But, I know I won't figure it out if I stop talking about it.
I am both anxious and afraid to learn more and speak louder about the plague. Believe you me, I will be stating things that may not always be 100% right. I'm prepared to write that off as an educational expense.
I cannot force anyone to care as much as I do about what this virus is doing to our lives. The lives of our friends and our families. Our global community. I can only hope that we go on this informative journey together. That we feed off of each other's ideas and concerns, in a good way.
I. Am. Not. Going. To. Stop. Talking. About. HIV and AIDS.
No comments:
Post a Comment