nos morituri te salutamus: my gay pride 2006 west hollywood report & how it is i didn’t go this year. thinking and writing and speaking up about hiv - diminished ability & productivity–still issues of shame and sorrow. (333) suite sheet
welcome readers from first international carnival of pozitivities.
there are so many things we dare to talk about when discussing aids and hiv-disease.
life-productiveness loss hasn’t been one of them.
i never hear anything about the terrible cost of the aids epidemic in hiv-ers’ losses of productivity and losses of ability and will and desire to participate in “normal” social, political, cultural and public activities. the loss of a pwa’s opportunities for personal life-contributions to a community. the loss of our capacity to belong.
no one seems to talk about the losses in political disenfrancisement that follow not being able to “attend.” losses that prevent complete, informed political dialog, losses that occur because hiv-ers “can’t make the meeting.” too bad. hope they’re better next week.
no one says much about the losses to our culture & society because hiv-ers are too tired & sick to work or create or cultivate or plant or build or otherwise contribute. except, maybe, to observe how it adds to the famine in africa because of the loss of agricultural workers. or ignorance in africa because of the loss of teachers. or political instability in africa because of hiv-infected soldiers. edwin cameron, a member of the south african supreme court, is, so far, the only public official out about his aids in africa. how many others do you suppose there are? in africa?
no one says anything about how we are lost to one another.
no one says anything about how everybody thinks but never says we don’t really need hiv-ers around, even though we’re sympathetic with their plight.
nobody knows how to quantify these things, so therefore they become white elephants. (how many dollars lost? there’s quantification for you. how many lives lost? doesn’t apply here yet, but it adds to the toll. how many sideliners? how many depressions kicked off because of it? how much does that help big pharma and the anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, psychotropic pill market? the street market? again, how many bucks? how many suicides? how many pwas are you writing off before we die? while we die? while you wait for us to die somewhere else, out of sight?)
this year i’m talking about it. right now i’m talking about it. try to listen.
off the top of my head: let me see if i can break through the crust of trite slogans and vague generalizations to get to the richer compost of this accumulated experience. we are badly in need of thought fertilizer on this topic.
this is and will be an uncomfortable subject for us both. while you have the ability to click elsewhere and not deal with this issue anymore, i don’t. this is tough stuff, not a sob story. i think you need to know.
so be a lifecycler at the fifteenth mile, make yourself read on, ride on.
nos morituri te salutamus: my gay pride 2006 west hollywood report & how it is i didn’t go this year. thinking and writing and speaking up about diminished ability & productivity–still issues of shame and sorrow. (333)
please feel free to look at other parts of this 12-part suite — rk
333.01 suite sheet
333.02 it hurts to go. it hurts not to go.
333.03 the challenges of public transportation
333.04 voter registration and assistance
333.05 how can there be gay pride without gay hiv-ers? we are an estimated 25% of the gay community. why are we not 25% of the parade? too afraid we won’t get laid? [returned to draft. think about the headline -- rk]
333.06 aids lifecycle ride-in saturday june 10 & my open poem to aids lifecycle 5 participants
333.07 dina’s story
333.08 remembering rickster the snorer from beingALIVE’s acupuncture clinic.
333.09 edwin cameron’s story
333.10 ruth brinkers’ story
333.11 tolkien: two on the road
333.12 ps–
please click on this sentence to go to the aids-write.org top page.
