8:30am | Whenever I write about HIV/AIDS, it is always with a heavy hand and even heavier heart. This is for a rather simple reason: despite how much we have progressed in knowledge and prevention, there seems to be a growing distance between thought and action — particularly when it comes to the younger generation. It seems that this disease is something that has been relegated to the past for people of youth. For many within the younger LGBTQ community, it is something that affected people in the 80s; for the youth within the heterosexual community, it is something that is mainly relegated to gay men.
It is this type of thought that is not only dangerous, but the reason we still have and need a concept like World AIDS Day. Sadly, the 20- to 24-year-old age bracket was the largest group with new positive diagnoses in 2009 in the U.S. (with 25- to 29-year-olds coming up with a close second), the latest statistics to be released by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Even more disturbing, the CDC recently released an alarming set of numbers: of the 1.2 million Americans infected with HIV, 850,000 do not have the disease under control and 240,000 don’t even know they have the disease. As Dr. L.O. Kallings, an HIV/AIDS specialist, pointed out in his phenomenal article in The Journal of Internal Medicine, this disease is the world’s first postmodern pandemic, spanning over 25-years and currently infecting more than 33 million people worldwide.
Before studying writing at Long Beach State, I moved to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to help implement more efficient and knowledgeable HIV/AIDS programs. My experience there is one that still haunts me because of the way in which the disease morphs itself by culture. In the entirety of Africa, an overwhelming amount of those living with HIV/AIDS are heterosexual — a vast difference from the U.S., where over half of new infections are due to male-to-male contact. However, what was and still is overwhelmingly similar is the stigma attached to it. In Africa, particularly amongst women, those infected are shunned, outcast, and entirely submerged at the bottom of the well. Here, while slightly more tolerant, it is still a scarlet letter, particularly amongst gay men: you’re not “clean” and there automatically becomes an association attached to your character.
What I eventually came back to the States with was the fact that our desperate attempts to harness this disease under a single umbrella has ultimately failed. And for those who still think that it is relegated to one specific group of people, this archaic form of thinking is simply ill-grounded: HIV/AIDS spans every sex, culture, gender, ethnicity, age, and class bracket. Unlike humans, this disease does not discriminate on any level.
Given this schism, it is up to us to overcome our own discriminatory practices in order to truly better ourselves, both individually and collectively. When I spoke with Ish Morales, a HIV/AIDS counselor at The Center in Long Beach, he informed me of a trend within the positive community: in the 80s and throughout the 90s, it was of utmost importance for those who were positive to immediately identify as such; yet, as the stigma of HIV/AIDS continued and morphed into a younger generation, it has now become the responsibility to ask instead of being informed, for the positive community no longer feels the need to “out” themselves, to make themselves more vulnerable to discrimination and stereotyping.
Both sides are sadly misdirected, for it is the responsibility of everyone to engage in knowledge of their partners as well as themselves; it is admission as much as it is inquiry. Such as the recently disturbing case of Daniel Rick and the common case of simply “I didn’t know,” these are — first and foremost — preventable cases.
If you are sexually active, get tested. And it is not my intent to be preachy, to opine you into a moral corner. This is 2011: you know of the possible consequences of your behavior. What I am asking of you is to be open with your partners about such behavior and to help curb a disease that has deeply affected the world at large.
Essentially, for me, this day means that one more person can walk around without fear of eyes casting judgments upon them. This day means that the ideals we believe in, particularly freedom, can happen on all levels — socially and biologically. This day means we have and own the power to make the world a better place. It supersedes disease and becomes a beautifully coordinated human endeavor to simply care for one another.
The Center offers free, confidential rapid HIV testing Monday through Friday from 2:00pm to 9:00pm and on Saturdays from noon to 3:00pm. For more information about getting tested, visit www.centerlb.org.