why do you have to see yourself in the past to sympathise with people who died during AIDS crisis? or is it only gay men you care about?

what about sex workers? and latinx people? and the Black community? and people who injected drugs? and the thousands of people still dying a year from AIDS-related illness who don’t look like or live like you?

not to mention the many thousands of women and blood transfusion recipients who are always, always left behind and forgotten.

“we can do both” is the inevitable reply: so DO BOTH. but you don’t. ever.

at the risk of over-reading, but fuck it, this projecting back produces a “post-AIDS” historiography. it says: i am living and (sadly) they are not, therefore AIDS is “over”. yet: poor Black MSM and people in the global south are still dying from AIDS related illness.

people will find this irritating because they, like me, enjoyed “it’s a sin” and found it very moving. i did too. i wept buckets. but i think it is important we think carefully about what to do with those tears. people are still mourning AIDS deaths worldwide.