Our Brave Faces

Frontdesk by David Waggoner

January is the start of so many things. A new calendar means a new year. Promises that we inevitably won’t keep, but make all the same. Resolutions that are forgotten by the end of the month; old habits that are hard to break and new ones that are usually difficult to keep. Even the President of the United States makes his annual State of the Union address, where nearly a thousand of the nation’s leaders are in attendance to hear the world’s most powerful elected official talk for about an hour about his goals for the next twelve months, to report on his stalemates both personal and public, and to give the public the appearance that Washington is working. On January 23, I’ll be sure to tune in. You should, too. It’s time that we listen to what our government is saying, doing, not doing, complaining about. Surely we’ll hear about the merits of the war and how we must honor the bravery of our men and women “in harm’s way.”

But what about bravery shown on other front lines?

As I see it, one in ten people on this planet will have lost a sister, brother, mother, or father because of HIV. And yet AIDS is still closeted, forgotten, abhorred, and belittled. It’s a strange time for something that affects so many of us. And yet so few are enraged or saddened by this state of denial. It’s as if the world (the world of HIV) is too far away for many Americans to give a damn. It will take bravery for those in denial to face the reality of HIV/AIDS once and for all.

It will take bravery for those living with HIV/AIDS to not let this negative response get them down and also to get the services and medications they need to survive. North Carolina is the latest state whose ADAP isn’t working right. Where two hundred of its own citizens are nearly dead from the virus that so many are living with now. And even when you do have meds, sometimes it’s just enough to have a brave face (lipoatrophy or not) when one leaves the apartment and goes to work each morning (when the meds aren’t causing diarrhea that is).

It takes bravery to ask the hard questions. Why are we letting our healthcare system continue to erode; why do we allow sixty million Americans to live without healthcare at all? Why does the first day of each new year in Africa mean that another 7,000 citizens of that continent are infected because only nine percent of women in Africa have access to drugs that prevent transmission of the virus during childbirth? While America the Beautiful shows off its military might overseas, taking care of the needs of millions who are tired, and poor, and can’t begin to take a journey to a country as blessed as the one we find ourselves waking up in everyday, where is the passion for compassion for those at home? What about AIDS, and those “in harm’s way,” in our own backyard?

Wouldn’t it be better if the State of the Union address were a townhall meeting of sorts, where the average Joe and Jane could discuss these important issues with the President, the Justices
of the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the newly elected Madame Speaker, and countless other politicians? They might look to BET’s Rap-It-Up teen forums for a model. Lamman Rucker, this month’s cover story and a frequent participant in these forums, helps us see what can be gained when you involve teens, adults, and AIDS educators young and old in the Q&A process. It’s brave to ask the questions but braver still to answer them—and answer them now.

January 2007