Crimp/Rolston
Purpose:
They begin by discussing how on March 10, 1987, Larry Kramer talking in a speaker’s serious for NY’s Lesbian and Gay Community Services center. He is the author of The Normal Heart, and discussed aids with the group. He lobbied for more people to get the word out about aids. So, he started a new organization devoted solely to political action (the aids Coalition to Unleash Power) . The target was big business. He set up protests, wrote op-ed pieces and much more. The demonstration led to arrests and made national news. They used a silence=death campaign to highlight how the nation was not educated about the dangers of AIDS, especially how president Reagan was not. After a year, they had some progress such as 133 million had been budgeted for AIDS education, but there were still struggles such as widespread discrimination against those with AIDS.
Definitions/main points of campaign:
Aids Coalition to Unleash Power: “a diverse, nonpartisan group united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis”
AZT: the only government-sanctioned new therapy drug for AIDS
action: Immediate establishment of a coordinated, comprehensive, and compassionate nationaly policy on aids; immediate release of drugs that may save our lives, immediate establishment of a $60 million fund to pay for AZT, immediate mass national education and immediate policy to prohibit discrimination
chant: Your gloves don’t match your shoes. You’ll see it on the news!
facts: in one day, the pentagon spends more than the total spent for aids research and education since 1982 (what’s the stat now?!)
silence = AIDS design: stamped a shocking pink AIDSGATE over a Warhol-like picture of Reagan-people were able to recognize it. “Graphics are an aid to organizing”
massive march on washington for lesbian and gay rights: aids was on everyone’s mind then-created a quilt that was two football fields large. 500,000 people participated in the march.
key words: “Act up”, “the aids crisis is not over” aids: 1 in 61-used Spanish too, “White heterosexual men can’t get aids…don’t bank on it.” “why are we here? because your malignant neglect KILLS!”
Questions:
- It would be interesting to research how education on AIDS is today. I know my professor Shawnika Hull specializes in campaigns for men with AIDS in Milwaukee and getting the education out to them. It was an awesome campaign that she showed us.
This piece really hit home to me. My uncle died of AIDS complications 20 days before I was born in 1993-so around the same time education was necessary.
