We Were Here - AIDS in the 1980's

[methodwriter85]

I'm watching this documentary on PBS, called We Were Here. It follows people who either became infected with AIDS in 1980's San Francisco, or helped AIDS victims. Here's the PBS website about the documentary:

 

We Were Here

 

I thought it was a pretty good documentary. I'm always fascinated whenever I learn about the 1980's AIDS epidemic...every time I see pictures of those young, healthy men reduced into walking skeletons, god. I just can't even imagine what it must have been like to have been a young man suddenly faced with having to go to funeral after funeral. I think the story that got me the most was a guy who talked about having to try and comfort a father who actually said that it wasn't as hard to hear that his son was dying as it was to hear that his son was a fag. Man.

 

It's a tragic story, but what really impresses me about the stories featured was just how so many people didn't just take this lying down- they banded together to do what they could to help the victims, whether it came down to delivering food to victims or petitioning the government for more research funding. According to the website, Ronald Reagan didn't mention AIDS until 1987. It's unbelievable that Ronald Reagan didn't say even say the word "AIDS" until 1987.

 

The story of the AIDS epidemic is an important one, I think- part cautionary tale, part example about what people who band together to help are capable of doing.

Edited June 16, 2012 by methodwriter85

[Zombie]

Second that

[Ashi]

Thanks for sharing. Very touching story. I wanted to be an AIDS nurse..., then it didn't happen. I think that thought happened when I was watching Pedro, a pseudo docu-drama thing (don't know how you categorize that one). Well, I hope everyone who does it wears the rubber. Getting AIDS isn't something glorious.

 

EDIT: Oh, and a nice break from your One Direction blogs.... ;-)

Edited June 15, 2012 by Ashi

[3clips3]

you should read my own country by Abraham Verghese who is an Aids doctor and his experience with aids in a small southern town in the late 80s.

Edited June 23, 2012 by 3clips3

[methodwriter85]

Thanks, that sounds pretty interesting.

 

If you've ever read Confessions of A Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim (of Nellie Olsen fame), she goes a bit into the AIDS epidemic. Her on-screen husband died of AIDS in 1986, and she got really into AIDS activism because of it.

[Yettie One]

Its strange to me that a disease that still kills millions of people each year, still infects scores of our young people and is still so deadly is spoken about so little these days. We assume that slapping on a rubber will keep us safe, but in 2010, 18 people a day were diagnosed with AIDS in the UK alone.

 

I know that in Harare, Zimbabwe it is estimated that over 400 people a day die of AIDS related illnesses, a scourge that kills hundreds of thousands of people across the continent each year.

 

But what is even more scary in the African theatre of life is the risk that AIDS poses to innocent children when the apparent cure for AIDS lies in the hands of a Virgin Girl. According to the myth, the blood of a virgin can cure the effects of AIDS giving rise to a whole new crisis for African Children.

 

Politicians like Regan are not the only one's failing mankind by their failure to address these issues quickly enough. It's still happening right now, just in different parts of the world. I work with an African charity that provides shelter to over 300 orphans of AIDS in South Africa. That is just a drop in the ocean when you read that there are 2.3 million orphans of AIDS in Zimbabwe, and an estimated 13 million orphans across Sub Saharan Africa. Wanna know what its like for a kid in Africa right now?

 

AIDS has affected so many lives. I never really knew very much about what happened in the 80's on the US West Coast, and in some ways we owe a lot to the community that pulled together to support each other and struggle for acknowledgement and recognition of a dangerous disease. It was their efforts that focused attention, their story that fortified scientific commitment to finding a cure, and their lives that bear witness to a harrowing time in our history. For Africa that nightmare continues though, and this is something I have lived through, witnessed first hand and something I can share. It's not over yet.

[SthnGent]

This is a hard subject for me...I lived through it.

 

The day after Thanksgiving, 1989, it was a day set in tradition for me, as it was the day that I would start on Christmas cards. That particular year I had gone to a gay book store in Washington, D.C. and got some really fun cards, a few being a bit risqué. Sitting down, I started. Within 30 minutes I realized that most of my address book was crossed out. My very best friend along with all of our other friends were gone.

 

That was the last year I ever bought Christmas cards, and I've not sent one out since.