Donald Moffett He Kills Me (installation detail), 1987
He's dead, but as the encomiums pile up he's not going to look dead enough.
Reagan virtually spat on people with AIDS throughout his presidency. The epidemic began under his watch, and he ensured that it would ultimately kill millions. For that responsibility alone, he didn't deserve the relief alzheimers must have brought to his memory.
Ah, wait, Barry just turned on Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel Mighty Real." The magical musical legend Sylvester died of AIDS in 1988, so that ecstatic, triumphant shout of delight seems very real around here today. We're dancing on his grave tonight. Maybe me especially. I'm still talking, and now that monster/fool is not. I'm one of the lucky ones. I've been HIV+ for decades, and I'm not leaving yet.
Oh yes, and my memory's just fine.
[image from Richard F. Brush Gallery, St. Lawrence University]
Not sure if anyone has taken up the spin on the following:
Hi Rachel (Maddow)! Sent February 6, 2009
Thanks for your segment 2/5/09 on Tear Down This Myth with author Will Bunch. Since you were age 9 in 1982, I'd like to share how Reagan affected the masses regarding the AIDS crisis. I wrote this Before Obama’s (BO) Inauguration January 20, 2009.
I was counting down on Backwards Bush Clock when Bush, Cheney, Rice (first Rove then Rummy) became the EXES of EVIL, enjoying Inauguration Day celebrating living 20 years since testing HIV-positive 9/27/88. Ironically, Ronald Reagan did NOTHING to alert the public and died June 5, 2004, the anniversary when the CDC announced GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) in 1981. It would have been Reaganesque for him to die June 6th on the 60th Anniversary of D-Day (1944). Instead Ronnie passed on the 23rd Anniversary of the HIV/AIDS D-Day. G.H.W. Bush carried out same politics of discrimination despite Ryan White Emergency Care Act (1990) passing. Thanks ACT UP! Poetic Justice is kinder, gentler than revenge. Another irony was G.W. Bush actually doing something for HIV/AIDS globally, especially in Africa, despite eliminating condoms that proved not to protect him from a positive transmission of a negative absence-only legacy.
Yet again am victim of Repub-lie-omics being laid off on Groundhog Day after 18 years at an agency having worked on LGBT mental health and suicide prevention. Like the movie, wake up realizing I was canned and try to figure out what next at 25 and dyslexic. Now with Obama in office, I have faith and hope despite the trauma of 20 years of Reagan, Bush and Bush with time off during Clinton.
Will's book is timely and thanks for myth busting on your great show. If only the public would care about other myths associated with that myth of a president.
Keep up the great job Rachel helping LGBT communities be out loud and proud!
Cheers, Mark A. Davis
MADpride1988@yahoo.com
215-627-0424