OutCasting; Pandemics - Covid 19 and AIDS - part 4 of 4

set an act up we were making it up as we went along to anybody over banking continues to tear through the community i hope that same type of people who joined the outcome will come together us government right what is necessary to restore our medical centers on to covert it did away with everybody taken care of not wealthy white people this is access to public radio's of lgbt q youth program that we don't have to be clear to be here i've cast is produced a new idea for the public not online at an outcast immediate dot org hi i'm lucas it's truly to tell about the long term impact cove and it will have on the world though of course in the short term we've already experienced illness and death and social economic and political disruption on a massive scale some countries are

successfully reopening carefully but here in the united states the lack of federal leadership and the politicization of even such basic preventive measures as wearing masks have combined to make the us one of the worst countries in the world and getting the pandemic and some states social distancing and widespread wearing of masks have kept the disease from spiraling completely out of control but elsewhere cases are spiking maley though not entirely in states and with people who will follow the attitudes of president donald trump is considering the virus to be a hoax resisting the preventive measures that have been shown to work and publicly disagreed with the best scientific knowledge currently available and light of this lack of success perhaps the only real hope for this pandemic will end in the us anytime soon seems to rest on the possible development of vaccines unlike covert which in some areas has been contained at least for now the aids pandemic which began in nineteen eighty one was allowed to spiral out of control and i was about fifteen years from the beginning

of the outbreak until the development of effective treatments in the mid nineties even now nearly forty years later there is no vaccine you one is reports that as of the end of twenty eighteen nearly seventy five million people have been affected with each of the thirty two million had died some people have been suggesting though we're feeling now and the early days of the covert outbreak must be similar to how i felt at the beginning of the aids crisis but there were crucial differences in a commentary in the april twenty twenty edition of outcast overtime outcast accra said imagine how much lower the number of people lost is might have been if people hadn't aged gay man and had instead of recognized aids is a worldwide health crisis right from the beginning and about how you today dealing with his new corona virus would be panicking of covert war raging and your community but there was no effect of public response i imagine the sickness and death becoming pervasive among your own friends and family and asking pleading screaming for

help but no innocents no one really cares about the infected and the government sits on money that she'd be released for developing a vaccine or cure for caring for those who are sick and that's in a rage and grief you feel as your friends were getting sick and dying and the rest of the world was ignoring the whole thing joining us to help us understand and not just imagine is jay boucher kay is a veteran journalist and activist he arrived in your city in nineteen eighty two he began writing for the newark at the leading gay newspaper at the time and then became associate producer of our time the tv show about lgbt life in your city who study activist and historian peter russo che joined new york in nineteen eighty seven the year the group has found it he took part in key demonstrations like the fta protest in nineteen eighty eight stopped the church in nineteen eighty nine and the demonstration of the national institutes of health in nineteen ninety

he served as the head of act ups media committee taking the help from michelangelo senior ellie most recently jay was the editor of rainbow warrior well if you collect them or of gilbert baker creator of the rainbow flag jay's also a member of the gilbert baker foundation and co founder public impact me a consultant's a pr firm for progressive groups and individuals this is the last part of a four part series if you missed the earlier parts you can listen to them on our website out gassing media dot org welcome back out as cj when we left off on the last edition about casting i asked you about what our history with aids could teach us about how we need to deal with this current corona virus pandemic you talked about the danger cause for people in leadership positions who don't believe in big government precisely at the time that the government could be most helpful including socialized medical care for everyone and not just the rich and privileged one of the key lessons of the aids crisis was a recognition that

unprotected sex could now be deadly and that led to the widespread acceptance and adoption of safer sex practices as we do a coven it right now we've all become acutely aware of the things we can't do whether it's seeing their loved ones are going to work so tell us about some of the things that gay men lost because of the aids crisis and the fear that's around that you know in the gay community with decorated in the at the ninety if by eight and a lot of that really suffered hubbell author that the entire society at large suffered we oft writers and poets and musicians we oft dancers fingers we often offers find hiv people who could've made this a better world and they were just forgotten and thrown away because they happen to be gay or lesbian or because they had aids and they were shunned me i couldn't even begin to

calculate the loft it's a friday of the hundreds of thousands of people who lost faith what might they have brought to this world how could they have they might've made this world much better one with music or with a scientific discovery or with an invention it's something that could have helped but we'll never know because they're gone and so when i mourn these people i also mourn america because america could shave these people i haven't talked to if they had started earlier and shown the compassion and the politicians that they had shown compassion that was expected of them we could've faded film winnie live so much earlier but important time was lost as doctors and politicians ignored a warning fines and just didn't want to deal with it and that's the america that i grew up in and that's the legacy of the aids epidemic to

remind me not to trust my government and to realize that the only way we're going to save people is by having the community at large they are together to do the right thing in the absence of a government that can't be counted on to do the right and that just in the compassionate and humanistic thing that we've put them into the office to do they are not even doing what they're expected to do as a politician and what they're expected to do as human beings if they don't even have a different theory so after game and had already lost so much and given that there is no end in sight questions about the value of life had to rise gay men felt they were losing the social freedom they have been fighting for for decades the freedom to love that society had sought to deny them and that they had fought for and over call records great resistance what to get me to give up the freedom considering what had taken to win it you know in nineteen eighty three

the aids activist michael palin came along with his friend richard berkowitz and dr joseph on a bender they worked together to create an outline of sexual practices that could be done faithfully and they were saying that yes we understand that sexual freedom and sexual identity are a large part of the gate mayo but let's grow up a little bit here and face the fact that there were certain things that could be putting you at risk for that the youth and they created a booklet which i believe is called how to have sex in an epidemic which was very clear and graphic about what sex to have and what facts not to end i grew up during that period the i was twenty three in nineteen eighty three and i was faced with yeah i'd only been out of the cars that can fly at that but i didn't sexually active that a thirteen twelve actually and certainly there were people

who were debating the issue think oh no one's going to tell me a lot of facts well this bravado an offensive and parliament really just ring hollow when you're faced with the prospect of your own demise because of certain sexual practices some people were cavalierly said i'm not going to change my attitude and not to change the way i have facts and i'd like to know if they're still here right now and then there are others who said ok well with that will change your sex in our sexuality but will still have factual do have facts in a safe way that is compassionate and cares for our friends and lovers and neighbors it's one thing to be adamant about gold affected my birthright it's another thing to realize that effect is dangerous and you're putting people at risk then there's no glorification in math and it makes you

look pretty horrible and felt as if your hell bent on having facts that could hurt you and also hurt the other person so people learned the reasonable people learned how to mix up their factual repertoire felt that they were doing things that were considered low risk or no ref and i did that two and i got through the epidemic and i survived and i am a chubby negative so yeah there will if a fractious argument in the early days of the epidemic with people they don't tell me on fx and other people fed going to get it if you have the wrong foot affects you could die effects worth dying for some people would say yes other people would say no other people would say okay this is the reality now and i'm going to in here to that reality and hope one day for if you are or what you haven't come yet prep use an option prep is allowing people to have

certain types of facts again but as i said before there are many people who seem to be this understanding the wall of prop and they are neglecting to use condoms deafening condom from their safer sex practices and we're seeing a rise in fact we should know that factions and that is a very august development especially in the gay male community when we made to leave germany this is about us public radio's lgbt q used for producing your idea for the public online outcasts immediate dot org as the covert nineteenth and then unfolds around the world some people are saying this is what it must have felt like at the onset of aids our guest is j boucher a longtime activist was involved in the struggle against aids in new york city we've been talking for almost two

hours trying to see who we can learn from these crisis that might help us understand the covert pandemic i imagine it's very draining for you about this conversation having lived through that time and now seeing other spots a covert has been mishandled and so many places i can only convey to you how emotionally and often it is to talk about this again you know even thirty years later on her feel every fiber of a king as reporting it home jay i think a lot of people feel helpless and don't feel they have the ability to change the situation how has you act up during the aids crisis do with these feelings of hopelessness as the governor was essentially doing nothing the anger that we felt on a daily basis luckily we had a receptacle for it we had our demonstration we have the many committee even act up that we could take part in if you were an artist you could be part of the demonstration committee you could create these beautiful

fine friend banners if you're a writer like myself to be part of the media committee and create prettily for everybody found their nisha in act up and that really favored family because rather than just read the newspapers on the day to day basis and watch our community being decimated if we could do something every day we could do something fight back and know that we were just stricken with the hair and the anger and frustration we were all they're trying to make a difference so you took the anger and fear and frustration and instead of turning inward and absorbing and uber rented out into the world as a force for good but it sounds as if being attacked up was altered in therapy i think jack up with the best therapy that anybody could have at the time the mine to act up with not the destination for everybody act up at its height only had maybe about eight hundred people in and they had many fewer people more for the time act up with not for

everybody but for the people who you spoke to act up with a life saver an ironic to look back and realize that what looked afghan and many people in the lgbt community as a group of troublemakers here is thirty years later and people are finally coming around and recognizing what we accomplished but back then not only did we have mainstream society hating earth but we had members of our own communities embarrassed by us and thinking that we were just a bunch of troublemakers who are actually making things worse but at that point in the epidemic we really if we had tried to be nice and being i didn't move their whole heart and so we decided to respond to this ignorance and homophobia and the lack of response with your anger and expertise and defiance as a young gay activist i find it so inspiring to

hear the perspectives of gay elders like you who have gone to fight like this what would you say to people in my generation who want to take on problems in the world today we were making it up as we went along and i want to be clear that anybody can do this that we did it because we had to and we didn't have any guide book and we just did and we made mistakes but we just when along and if we realise that doing it was more important than doing it right just rising sea vacation what i accomplished an act up one because i went from superhero one because it had the lion's share of the asian and in flight i was just one regular person who needed to do something and it rose up with a bunch of other people who were just living on the edge of their wit and just had to do something

because something had to be done a lesson that i want people to know is that what we did anybody can do end as a covert nineteen continues to tear through the community i do hope that same type of people who joined our will come together to demand that this government to do the right thing and do what is necessary to restore our medical system can to respond to covert nineteen in a way where everybody is taken care of not just wealthy white people because this epidemic is affecting the poor much harder the people don't have access to the medical system we need a better medical system because it's the right thing to do thank so much terry if you want to learn more about the aids crisis and what it was like whether a particular books and filled you'd recommend journalists the book there are many books

that either are nonfiction or fictional account all the early days of the epidemic and i would urge younger people especially younger are sexually active lgbt people to read to learn about the struggles that they are for farmers and for mother's apartment and the band played on by ridiculous it's considered the most sweeping document abo the epidemic in the early years ah how to survive a plague by david franz is a really expensive book that takes up where the epidemic when times where randy short book left off all larry kramer the founder co founder jim at and cofounder that the new book called report from the holocaust which talks about the work that he did it and he made

it and report from the holocaust an inquiry of fiery eloquent way he discovers that there is any beautiful ethical fiction book called christian door up like tim murphy to move the live a longtime aids activist and he fictionalize is the epidemic in new york in the eighties and nineties with a multigenerational book and very very eloquent and powerful i if you want to get something that black comedy a book by a longtime aids activist writer named david feinberg called queer unloading at a very ride a look at what it was like to be in the midst of the epidemic and to be young jewish and robert altman and many many field of course we have the ryan murphy many carriers the normal heart that premier a couple years ago we

have the hbo adaptation of the tony kushner stage clay aiken so that america which is quite a meeting with meryl streep and high alpa chino we have the french film the pm which looks at hat armed people who were in the act up paris calm a documentary about dion documentary about our fans and fiscal handled the aids epidemic it was called we were here and that by david white men armed of course dr tom hanks in his heart award winning roth hike in philadelphia the nineteen ninety four film by jonathan demme he is still a powerful film that new talks about the early days of the epidemic the documentary common threads are witches one oscar winner and that is about

the aids quilt and how it came to be and it tells the stories of the people who lived are depicted the people who died one week panel it should be true om the film a fictional well it's a fictional film based on real life for dallas buyers club and that is with jared leno and matthew mcconaughey both who won oscars for that and that is about an unlikely group of community people who rose up to help people with aids when they realize the government wasn't doing enough and a film that appeared on pbs back in nineteen and try it with thought and he dove in nineteen ninety called longtime companion by norman renee is they look at new york city's gay community responded in the early years this is been a great conversation thanks so much for getting so far

into a pasture this was to do with the covert pandemic what can we learn from the aids pandemic very eerie parallels between the two perhaps most notably the lack of appropriate responses from both the reagan and trump administration with aids as we discuss with jerry the stigma around gay men let the government to not care about her mckay says during the early years of aids when federal leadership is crucial president reagan neglected the developing epidemic to say the least as jay noted reagan did not say the word it publicly until nineteen eighty six five years in money that should have been spent on researching care was held up exacerbating and prolonging the crisis and it took fifteen years to find effective treatments there is still no effective vaccine he was even more dangerous for many people were infected to talk openly about their illness because in many situations that could lead to the loss of their jobs their home their insurance and even their family especially their family didn't know they were gay so they have to

have the facts come out on two levels as gay and as being infected by this deadly quake today we have a republican president whose response to covert has been perhaps even more harmful than of reagan's lack of response until very recently president trump not only neglected to do what the pandemic he actively dismissed it as a hoax concocted by democrats to harm his re election prospects trump has lied to the public and second very little responsibility for the nearly one hundred fifty thousand americans who have died of covert since the beginning of the pandemic well we really needed in both cases was direct honest and effective leadership with coded this national leadership should've been closely correlated with the states to give the public specific and consistent guidelines on mask wearing a social distancing and the case of aids people didn't know at the beginning how was transmitted or what they had to do to protect themselves part of the problem as we discuss with jay was the

incubation period for a longtime social transmission didn't seem likely because people would be in a monogamous relationships for years are getting sick in the end of course it's at the virus that causes aids was discovered blood test were developed the ways in which a chevy was translated were identified and people are trying to protect themselves but it took years and contrast we've known since the beginning of the covert pandemic how to stop the spread or we really need is what other countries have already shown to be successful mass social distancing staying at home for a period of time aggressive testing a couple of weeks of quarantine for those who test positive and contact tracing in real time yet it is clear that we are failing to contain this we all know that staying home and wearing masks it can be emotionally taxing the people who refuse to take these precautions by asserting their sense of entitlement and individual liberty are playing a big part in prolonging this pandemic for many of these people the idea of rugged individualism

seems to have displaced any sense of responsibility to other americans and it's ironic that this assertion of american liberty is contributing so heavily to the fact that the united states is among the most failed nations and dealing with this pandemic we lgbt q people have to fight for our rights just when we were starting to make gains in public acceptance during the decade after stonewall its came along and significantly raise them it's a combination of medical advancements and major changes in personal behavior over a period of years to contain the aids pandemic but we have largely they're not completely succeeded back then the use of condoms was seen by many as a major infringement their freedom today safer sex practices are the norm so we know what it's like to give up something you feel you deserve whether it's being outside without a mask or be open about her sexuality lgbt q people and others affected by a charity learn through high rates of illness and death but at times it can be necessary to value

the safety of the group above the ages of personal liberty and other things we think we deserve this is one of those times we all have a responsibility to protect each other especially those who have preexisting conditions or the elderly or people who for other reasons are at a heightened risk so you're supposed to wear a mask wear a mask when you can stay home stay on the part of the solution not the problem we can either contain this outbreak or let it hang on for a long time resulted in needless suffering and death the choice is in our hands that said for this edition about gassing and if you missed any of this four part series the whole series is available on our website podcasting media dot org this program has been produced by the outcasts and tv including its participants all mobley sour want sarah to impress will form justin brian andy lucas arts

edited producers marc surface outcast has produced a new media for the public good more information is available housing yet dot org to find information about the show was a voice for all our casting content of the podcast link outcast is all towards social media connect with us on twitter facebook and instagram and outcasts in libya if you're having trouble whether its at home or school or just let yourself call the trevor project hotline at eight six eggs four eight seven three eight seconds or visit them online at the trevor project dot org the trevor project is an organization dedicated to lgbt q u suicide prevention call them seriously don't be scared they even have an online chat you can use if you don't want to talk on the phone again the number is eight six six for eight a seven three lead

six being different isn't a reason to hate or hurt yourself eight six six forty eight seven three seconds or online of the trevor project dot org you can also find a link at our site out as immediate dot org and podcasting lgbt q resources by lucas thanks for listening to join us again next time on afghanistan