"What are we if we're not together?"

(Davids' Place Coffeehouse, a staple of Hillcrest for many years)

I wrote this article in 1994, when I was named as Assistant Editor to the newsletter for Being Alive San Diego, an HIV/AIDS advocacy and service organization that started in the 80s with an office on Park Blvd. in San Diego. I'm publishing it here as is because of "sudden" content that has surfaced regarding Democratic Candidate for President, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s stance on vaccines and the cause of AIDS. I put "sudden" in quotes because I only just found out about it, but apparently, he's been on the denialist bandwagon for many years, and spent the better part of yesterday disgusted by what I learned." I was 25 at the time I wrote the article and my views reflected the world through the eyes of someone as young, but the main points still apply. 

It's a crying shame that it's 2023 and we still have to be at work debunking misinformation of this magnitude.

"Togetherness" by Eric F. Crow

You’ve heard it all before:

“There is strength in numbers.”
“A house divided never falls.”

“United we stand, divided we fall.”

    In the last decade or so, it seems to me we have become a society of glaring division - particularly, since AIDS became the pandemic that it is today. Granted, there are exceptions--World AIDS Day, The Olympics, Stonewall, or some of the other noted times of togetherness celebrated by Generation X.. Sure, “it is our differences that make us strong”, as the old adage goes, but still I wonder more often than not, “have we taken this too far?” I give you two instances where this question is applicable.

    The first came about when I recently watched a television documentary called “A Time Of AIDS”; it was, perhaps, the most comprehensive history of AIDS and its real ramifications. One of the topics discussed was the dispute between the French and U. S. governments as to who actually discovered the HTLV-3 factor of HIV (and its eventual relationship with and to AIDS). The French government claimed that the U. S. essentially stole the discovery from them, and from there some very heated arguments ensued.

    As I absorbed the absolute absurdity of it all, I became incensed. It really threw me into a quandary. There we were, having come face to face with a plague that had the potential to terrorize generations to come, and the very people that we were relying on to find a way to nip this disease in the bud before it exploded (as it did), were not working together to create a solution, perhaps even a cure, but were arguing over the pettiness of who deserved the credit and who got the fortune and fame. Now, however reasonable it is to “give credit where credit is due”, is it really that important to argue over matters of prestige when thousands of people are becoming infected and/or affected HIV/AIDS? I have always been one to believe that existence precedes essence.

    The other instance was triggered by a recent theme propagated by certain people and organizations (whose existence I won’t even dignify with names) that HIV is not the virus that causes AIDS--some of these individuals also believe that the only people who can get AIDS are IV drug users and those who are sexually promiscuous (you know, ‘those people’). A noticeable stir seems to be afoot.

    Here again, signs of illogical and unnecessary division are clear. There should be no such division! Why is it, that instead of working together to stop this disease, we are still looking for ways to place the blame? It occurs to me often that a surprising number of people are still miseducated about HIV/AIDS, and that the reason they are miseducated is because there is a sense of non-unity! I use the word miseducated instead of ignorant because there is a subtle difference in lineage--these are (seemingly) people of intelligence. I would like to remind these people, however, that AIDS does not discriminate.

I feel I need to ask the question, “If we do not achieve this sense of unity, then where do we go from here?” Or better yet, as I hat to imagine the result of even further division, how do we come by further unity? The answer comes in four words: “Communicate, Listen, Cooperate, & Compromise.”

    As far as communicate and listen go, there is an old saying--”there are those who listen, and there are those who wait to talk.” If only we all knew how to listen instead of waiting to talk, we would be in far better shape to deal not only with HIV/AIDS, but other issues of major importance.

    As far as cooperate and compromise go, only by cooperation is any group of people, regardless of size or significance, able to come to compromise. All of us involved in this fight against HIV/AIDS have the ability, through cooperation and compromise, to create a plausible solution to this deadly affliction.

    With UNITY, there is no limit to our strength! So in closing, I plead with you, borrowing from the lyrics of a song strumming about my head of late:

    “What are we if we’re not together?
    How do we make a life that’s better?
    Because when we don’t hear one another
    How can we call each other brother (or sister)?

YOU TELL ME!!!