World AIDS Day 2014: To Fight AIDS, End Stigma and Advance Equality

[sheshe2]

World AIDS Day 2014 is a time of sorrow and hope: sorrow for those killed by AIDS and hope for an AIDS-free generation. Last night over 600 of us gathered in San Francisco at the National AIDS Memorial Grove to pray for the dead and fight for the living.

As we lit candles and placed them over names carved in stone at the Grove's Circle of Friends, the enormity of loss -- 19,000 San Franciscans of 648,000 Americans killed by AIDS felt staggering. I hesitate to say "lost to AIDS" because the term is too benign -- as if, like car keys or cell phones, people are "lost" randomly and accidentally to a disease. No, AIDS patients are killed by disease abetted by stigma, their immune systems compromised and vulnerable to opportunistic infections -- and opportunistic politicians who saw no need to fund HIV research, treatment, or cures because AIDS was the "gay" cancer. Privilege is a helluva drug -- and a deadly drug when it came to fighting disease among minority populations. We did not "lose" people to AIDS -- we denied them the opportunity to be cured because the majority of leaders around the world either feared the unknown or condemned gay people or both.

My mother, Nancy Pelosi, told the AIDS Grove volunteers about her first speech as a member of Congress in June 1987, telling the House of Representatives "I came here to fight HIV/AIDS" and being scolded by colleagues who asked why she would want the first thing people knew about her was her association with a deadly, stigmatized disease. But that is of course why she was sent to Washington to fight AIDS -- because San Francisco "took the biggest bite of the wormy apple that was HIV/AIDS" in the 1980s. The conflated fear of disease and homophobia was a deadly and toxic blend that delayed AIDS care for years. Indeed, so many people -- gay and straight -- died because of that early politicization of "gay cancer" as a punishment or a curse that not even the sweetest memory of dear ones killed by AIDS lacks the bitterness of the heavy toll humanity paid for our own inhumanity.

The world is changing now, as 30 years of work to break stigmas and advance equality manifests in our lives both personal and political.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-pelosi/world-aids-day-2014-to-fi_b_6249102.html

[sheshe2]

1. Kicking for awareness.

[sheshe2]

2. It's World Aids Day 2014

No one gives a flying fuck on DU for our LGBT brothers and sisters. I am an ally and I care. Do you?

People here are chewing their faces off and are getting rec'd to the top of the page. Aids awareness, Meh~

We have lost our way.

[uppityperson]

3. k&r

[sheshe2]

4. Thank your sweet heart.

I was about to give up all hope of a response, uppity.



One is so much better than none.

[uppityperson]

6. I've been offline for a bit but understand. Sometimes the timing is odd,

It is something that deserves many k&rs but for some reason it sinks.

Except for those assholes, do you see the stigma changing? I look back to 20-30 yes ago and can see that, but not sure in recent times so asking if you know. Thanks.

[sheshe2]

8. In some ways, yes I see change.

LGBT is being accepted as equals in many ways and under this President have gained many rights to wed legally with full rights under the law.

For many the stigma is still there. I have made friends with a few LGBT people here. I have always been an ally and have learned so much more.

See William769 post, it made me cry.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025894574

Hugs to you uppity.

Sad this went no where on DU, not the first time I have been disappoineted for the lact of interest on issues.

[uppityperson]

14. I am with you on all of that.

I saw his post earlier, words fail me beyond wishing health, peace, happiness and

[sheshe2]

16. ~

[KMOD]

5. K&R

We've come a long way, but there is still much further to go on this journey.

[sheshe2]

23. Much further, you are correct KMOD.

thank you for your post.

[Behind the Aegis]

9. For some, the disease is no longer considered worthy of discussion.

In my opinion, despite the number of heterosexuals with the disease, it has reverted back to being a "gay" disease. One the programs I started at a university on the east coast is no longer even being taught. Discussions about HIV and AIDS merit one class, if that, in human sexuality classes (at least at a few places), and once again, it is relegated to being discussed by the gay groups. To many now think of HIV, even AIDS, in the same manner of diabetes; manageable and livable. It isn't even remotely true. Minority communities are being hard hit again, and another demographic, often overlooked in many facets of life, the elderly. I haven't seen numbers and have only heard rumors, but allegedly prisons are not reporting HIV infections like they should.

[sheshe2]

15. The poster that was just removed by MIRT

Said Aids and Ebola appeared at the same time.

Yes, it is perceived as a "gay" disease heterosexuals with the disease are not mentioned much. They wish to put what they perceive to be an ugly illicit lifestyle to blame. That is ugly and it is so damn wrong. Reagan ignored it.

With AIDS finally out of the closet, activists such as Paul Boneberg, who in 1984 started Mobilization Against AIDS in San Francisco, begged President Reagan to say something now that he, like thousands of Americans, knew a person with AIDS. Writing in the Washington Post in late 1985, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, stated: "It is surprising that the president could remain silent as 6,000 Americans died, that he could fail to acknowledge the epidemic's existence. Perhaps his staff felt he had to, since many of his New Right supporters have raised money by campaigning against homosexuals."

Reagan would ultimately address the issue of AIDS while president. His remarks came May 31, 1987 (near the end of his second term), at the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington. When he spoke, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died. The disease had spread to 113 countries, with more than 50,000 cases.

As millions eulogize Reagan this week, the tragedy lies in what he might have done. Today, the World Health Organization estimates that more than 40 million people are living with HIV worldwide. An estimated 5 million people were newly infected and 3 million people died of AIDS in 2003 alone.

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Reagan-s-AIDS-Legacy-Silence-equals-death-2751030.php

Bloody Saint Reagan of the GOP let people die by the thousands. My heart breaks BtA, at the ignorance, hate and homophobia that let this spiral out out control.

[sheshe2]

10. Thanks Mirt!

[Behind the Aegis]

11. That was strange wasn't it?

I wasn't even sure what to make of it. I added it to "the list."

[uppityperson]

12. omg, you have a list?¿???

I am teasing you, missed the post and am glad.

Huh, new device and somehow I made an upside down ?¿¿???¿?¿
Neat.

[Behind the Aegis]

26. MWAHAHAHAHA!

I wish I could make the upside ? without using the symbol function.

[sheshe2]

17. Ya I copied it and was going to paste it....

It was not worth the effort.

[Behind the Aegis]

27. I added the post in the MIRT forum.

It was just an odd thing to say. I was really perplexed.

[Agschmid]

13. Kick!

[sheshe2]

19. Thank you Agschmid

http://www.stereogum.com/1722174/kanye-west-u2-fronted-by-bruce-springsteen-chris-martin-playing-world-aids-day-concert-in-nyc-tonight/video/

[sheshe2]

18. Kicking for DU to see.

[sheshe2]

20. 155 views

7 Recs for World Aids Day

Thanks so much DU, I knew that I could count on all the Progressives here.

YOU DO KNOW THAT THIS IS NOT JUST A "GAY" DISEASE CORRECT?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

21. Another rec for your very important and timely post, my dear sheshe!

I am proud to stand with you with our GLBT brothers and sisters!

[sheshe2]

22. Thank you Peggy~

[sheshe2]

24. Kick

[sheshe2]

25. Tears~

[uppityperson]

28. hoping for 1 more rec, sigh

[William769]

29. Thanks Sheshe.

With allies like you, the stigma will be gone in no time.



P.S. Sorry I am late to this thread.

[sheshe2]

30. You are right on time, William.

I don't see a stigma, never have. Ya know, it is not just a gay disease, though they want us to believe that. They want to be blind. So much easier for some.

There will be a day soon that it happens, no longer a stigma, we will instead have knowledge.

Every group needs to reach out and help the other, I have said this before together we rise, no one group can do it alone. Our numbers matter, our goals combined matter, we need to do this as one. For LGBT For Women For POC We need to support each other. There has been division in the past. NO MORE! We are ONE OR WE ARE NONE!