America bleeds on this World AIDS Day
By Alfred P. Doblin
According to the UNAIDS website, “Political leadership is paramount to advancing policies that address structural inequalities and protect vulnerable populations.” On this World AIDS Day – a commemorative day that dares not speak its name in official Washington, D.C. – I say to UNAIDS, “Lots of luck with that.”
In a rather infamous interview, I believe with Howard Stern, then-businessman Donald Trump referred to his youthful, rabid dating life and the possibility of contracting an STD, as his “personal Vietnam.” Perhaps his administration’s decision to erase official World AIDS Day this year, is a way of telling the millions of people who lost someone to HIV/AIDS, who are living with HIV/AIDS, or are at greater risk for infection, “Welcome to Saigon.”
To be charitable, the official decision is tone deaf and callous. To be honest, it is cruel, petty, and carries a whiff of 1980’s homophobia.
Back in the ’80s, October 1988 to be precise, Ronald Reagan wrote:
“One of America’s greatest strengths has always been our ability to work together in times of adversity. We must rely on this strength to sustain us as we work to prevent the spread of AIDS and the HIV [infection] and as we care for those already afflicted.”
Reagan wrote that in a presidential proclamation designating October as National AIDS Awareness and Prevention Month. Later that same year, the first World AIDS Day was observed on December 1.
Those were hard times, and Reagan had done little to address the AIDS pandemic over the course of his presidency, which began, like the first reported cases of what would later be known as AIDS, in 1981.
Reagan’s proclamation was significant, yes. But it came years too late, and it could not erase the suffering that might have been lessened if the federal government had been committed, from the beginning of Reagan’s presidency, to finding a cure and to helping curb the spread of HIV/AIDS, rather than at the end.
By 2024, 44.1 million people globally had died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic. It is a staggering number. In the United States, more than 700,000 people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since 1981.
I came out as a gay man during the height of the AIDS crisis, at the beginning of the 1990s. Then, the specter of AIDS followed gay men – like the random groups of straight men with bats, bottles, and fists that roamed gay neighborhoods – looking to exact vengeance on people only trying to live and find their place in the world.
In those days, death could be just one encounter away. Even when it became clear how the virus was transmitted, it was never truly clear to any gay man how to go about meeting someone, dating him, and being sure that you and he were completely safe.
Reagan wrote in that 1988 proclamation: “To prevent the further spread of AIDS and the HIV infection, we must heed lessons taught by medicine and morality alike. The Surgeon General has reminded all of us that the best way to prevent AIDS and the HIV [infection] is to abstain from sexual activity until adulthood and then to restrict sex to a faithful, monogamous relationship.”
I wonder if Reagan followed that advice as a young man, or as an adult. I have learned to be wary of people who pitch morality to others. As it says in Luke 7:3 – “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?”
People make good and poor choices every day, particularly when it comes to sex. Making a poor choice about sex should not result in death. But back then, there were plenty of “good people” who believed just that – that gay men were getting what they deserved, and that AIDS was a “just” punishment from God.
Out of that darkness, came light. The LGBT community began to coalesce. And a great thing – the NAMES Project, more commonly known as the AIDS Quilt – became a growing tribute to the people who had died from HIV/AIDS. To see even a single panel of the Quilt is powerful; to see it in large sections, is to walk through a cemetery as Thornton Wilder might have created, and to see and hear each person laid to rest below, speaking once again as the living.
It needs to be displayed again – on the National Mall, if possible, or somewhere else, like in a vast section of Central Park. People need to hear those voices and see those faces.
In 2025, HIV/AIDS is not the specter of death it was once. There are preventative drugs, and effective treatments that enable people living with HIV/AIDS to have long, productive lives. But HIV/AIDS still exists. It is important we remember that to prevent new transmissions, particularly in poorer communities, and in impoverished nations. And it is important that we remember all the people who have died from HIV/AIDS.
It is distressing that the United States will no longer officially recognize December 1 as World AIDS Day. Federal employees are still allowed to tout programs that help people, but they cannot spend a penny of taxpayer money noting World AIDS Day, whether it be in an email, a text, or a speech.
Why? The New York Times reported a State Department spokesman saying, “an awareness day is not a strategy.” But the Times also reported that the White House has issued many proclamations for other observances, including National Manufacturing Day. Yes, National Manufacturing Day.
An awareness day may not be a strategy at the State Department, but it is hard to believe that eliminating AIDS Awareness Day is not a strategy.
More than 40 years since the first reported cases of AIDS, this makes me sad and angry.
Whatever young people think about the challenges of COVID – of going to a hospital where no one could visit you; or having funerals outside churches, without friends and family; it was not as horrible as what happened to AIDS patients, particularly in those early years.
No one infected with COVID was told they deserved to die, that their suffering was a judgement from God. But that was all too common an experience for the people – mostly gay men – dying with AIDS.
I read the once-ubiquitous AIDS ribbon is red to symbolize blood and compassion – two seemingly incongruous things – blood and compassion. The former is often related to violence; the latter to love. But perhaps the two are two sides of the same coin. Blood is violence, but it is also life. I do not know.
I do know that when we lack compassion, we bleed as a society.
We are bleeding now.
Until next time, Alfred with a P