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the The human immunodeficiency virus emerged 40 years ago this month and created an epidemic that still devastates the communities where it was found.
June 5, 1981 the weekly morbidity and mortality report of the Center for Disease Control said five otherwise healthy cisgender gay men were diagnosed with pneumocystis pneumonia – a rare pneumonia that usually appears in people with suppressed or compromised immunity – and two have died. Then on July 3 this year, The New York Times reported that 41 cisgender gay men were diagnosed with the rare cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma. That’s when it hit fans in LGBTQ communities, black and Latin communities, injection drug users, and people with blood disorders that require transfusion.
This story has been widely seen through a white lens, with a disease attracting attention to ravage White man and cultural touchstones like the movie Philadelphia cream, about a white gay man with AIDS. But we have known that HIV has affected black Americans in the United States since at least the 1960s. The whitewashing of the epidemic helps explain why today, Even as HIV / AIDS rates decline in the United States, blacks and Latin Americans are eight and four times more likely to be vulnerable to HIV infection than white Americans, respectively, and in 2019 in Philadelphia, nearly 64% of newly diagnosed cases were in black city residents, per Ministry of Health data.
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It was not until 1987 that scientists realized first American to die of AIDS was probably a black teenager: 15 years old Robert rayford of St. Louis, who died in May 1969. Doctors, not knowing exactly what killed him, saved his blood and other samples. October 25, 1987 the Chicago Tribune reported that Rayford had tested positive posthumously, that his stored blood showed he was infected with HIV.
Today, HIV has claimed the lives of at least 32 million people around the world. In 2018, there were 346 deaths among people living with HIV in Philadelphia, 57 related to HIV, according to data from the Department of Health, showing that we still have a fight to wage against the epidemic locally.
Louie Ortiz-Fonseca, creator of the storytelling project Big boys, lost his uncle, aunt and father to AIDS and hopes to tell more diverse stories about those affected by the epidemic, by launching a digital art scholarship for “Gay, gay, bisexual and Latin / black-Latinx men living with HIV aged 21 to 35”.
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Ortiz-Fonseca also tested positive for HIV in 2005 at the age of 27. Born in North Philadelphia and black Puerto Rican, Ortiz-Fonseca has worked in nonprofit spaces since the age of 15 and has experienced the “complicated duality” of testing positive while working on HIV. José DeMarco, also a black Puerto Rican from West Philly, tested HIV positive in 1991. Join ACT UP Philadelphia in 1996, the first direct action organized by DeMarco drew attention to the incarceration of a comrade and member of ACT UP, Gregory Smith. Smith was an HIV-positive activist in a Camden prison convicted of attempted murder for allegedly biting an officer knowing he could transmit HIV. Sentenced to 13 years in prison, Smith died of complications from AIDS while incarcerated on November 10, 2003, at the age of 40.
Smith’s death was state sanctioned and reflected HIV phobia, as science shows HIV not spread through saliva– and also reflects the legacy of the criminalization of HIV. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, who also led “Defend your territory” laws, was responsible for criminalization laws requiring people with HIV to disclose their status before sexual activity, exposing them to accusations of exposing others to the disease.
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This criminalization was folded back in the 1990s Ryan White Cares Act, which required states to put in place a process to prosecute those who have “knowingly exposed” others to HIV in order to receive much-needed federal dollars to support people living with HIV / AIDS. Even today we see the stigma of crime associated with HIV diagnosis. Mayor Jim Kenney publicly disclosed HIV status of a former city worker accused of rape in 2017, violating privacy and irresponsibly linking HIV status to assault.
But community leaders give cause for hope. Tatiana woodard, a black trans woman from Nicetown, the mother of Ballroom house Escada, and responsible for prevention services at Mazzoni Center, said there are more programs available to community members than before and that we are seeing more leaders who reflect the community, noting that she is the rare trans woman in a management role across the community. city: “I think we still have a long way to go. I believe more of the community needs to take on leadership roles. She added that she thinks “it’s very sad that we don’t have these housing opportunities for work and, you know, other resources for trans women here,” and that before someone When one presents for an HIV test, their other needs such as housing, access to food and gender-affirming support services must be met.
As we move forward in our collective quest to end the HIV epidemic, may we remember the beautiful flowers blossoming and wilting by AIDS and resolve in the future not to lose any more lives.
Abdul-Aliy Muhammad is an organizer and writer born and raised in West Philadelphia. @MxAbdulAliy
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