This issue of the The BACCHUS Beat is our annual attempt to highlight the topic of HIV and AIDS; to make people more aware, to promote education, to do all that needs to be done to deal with the AIDS issue. And I hate it. And I hope (but am not hopeful) that this year's feature will be our last one.
Now I don't mean to offend, and, after all, intent is necessary for offense to occur, but I guess what I'm tired of is AIDS as an issue - because it's not. It is a disease. A disease that causes sadness and trauma and breaks up relationships and families. The issues that come with it - bigotry, discrimination, fear, ignorance, are not caused by the virus. They are caused by the shallowness of the human condition. And that will be a topic that no doubt could be featured by The BACCHUS Beat for the next 20 years.
A disease. And if you are unfortunate enough to contract it (not catch it, we aren't talking about a cold or poison ivy here) you deserve sympathy, health care, funding for a cure, dignity - all the things you would probably get if you were unfortunate enough to get a different disease.
Because if you had a different disease, you wouldn't have to explain it. AIDS is the only disease I can think of where people, maybe out loud, but usually whispered when you are not in the room, wonder how you got it. What are they really asking? Are they trying to figure out if the person "deserved it?" Can a fatal disease become more or less tragic, depending on the circumstances? "Oh, a blood transfusion...that's terrible."
Do we find out someone has cancer and think to ourselves "Wow, I didn't even know he was...a smoker." Do we find out someone has breast cancer and wonder whether or not she got mammograms on a yearly basis.
A disease, a disease that's fairly hard to contract, yet the people around us who are HIV positive (and there are more and more) are treated with little respect. We fight for our rights, not theirs. We want to distance ourselves from these dangerous people. After all, we have to take care of ourselves; these people could cause us harm. Why then don't we protest our campuses for allowing students who drive drunk to live side by side with us in the halls - after all, these people could be deadly. And you have a much better chance of getting in a car accident that you do contracting the HIV virus.
I am tired of AIDS being an issue - on both sides. I am tired of red ribbons. I am tired of the quilt. Not that I don't support these symbols, I just wish for the kind of world where we wouldn't need them. Because then you wouldn't have to remind people to be compassionate. It would come naturally. And you wouldn't have to make this disease special, with the goal of getting people to understand that it is not special at all. And you wouldn't have to use examples of people who are still living. The lives and the stories of those who are currently struggling would be enough.
But we don't live in that world yet. And even those of us who support "the right side" of the issue are caught in the trap. Because it still is an issue. I am tired of feeling I have to have twice as much love, sadness, sympathy, anger, for the people I know who are HIV positive to make up for all the people in our society who had no love, sadness, sympathy or anger associated with their lives and deaths. Which is another form of an "ism": making individuals who are HIV positive represent all people who are HIV positive. And I am wrong for expecting people who are dying of AIDS to be heroes.
Because most of them aren't. And they shouldn't have to be. We ask too much of them. But as long as AIDS remains an issue, as long as AIDS is something you have to explain, as long as telling the truth is hard because it opens yourself up to whispers and wonderings, and worries that go beyond expectation.
My colleague, T.J. Sullivan, wrote last month about Pedro Zamora, a young man who just died from AIDS-related causes. I don't know if Pedro was a hero or not. He certainly was a brave kid with a message, but being a hero shouldn't have been on his to-do list. He was a kid that should have been more interested in finishing his resume than finishing his life. That's the sad part. The sad part is he died at 22. I don't give a damn what he died of - he died. We feel a loss.
Let's treat AIDS for what it is - a disease. If it needs to be an issue, let the issue be one of funding, one of health care, one of prevention. And let the feelings that come with knowing a person that is HIV positive be what they should be - a loss for the community, and a chance to reach out and do something rather simple: be a decent human being. And those other issues? The discrimination, the fear, the ignorance, the things not caused by the virus?
Yeah, let's work on those too.