By Timothy DuWhite
“I will support you through this,” was all he had to say to me.
I’m not a doctor, but I think during certain boiling points of panic, instead of devolving into utter convulsions the body begins to calm. Almost to a sleep like state. At least, that’s what tends to happen to me. Whenever I feel myself expanding too large inside of myself, instead of bursting, I slowly deflate.
This explains why I am fully laid out on my mother’s pristine tiled bathroom floor—instead of smeared across these walls. His words have punctured the air out of me. When you reveal to your boyfriend, whom you thought you were in a monogamous relationship with, that you were just diagnosed HIV+, you expect a certain reaction. I was prepared for his fear. I was prepared for his anger. I was prepared for his denial. I was prepared for his accusations. I wasn’t, however, prepared for his “support.”
“I will support you through this.” He said the sentence so delicately, like a counselor speaking to a downtrodden youth. He said it like he’s seen this moment before. He said it like he’s walked through the gates of this moment and is now able to assure me from the other side that “it gets better.” But how?
Here I am, moments after being diagnosed, locked inside the bathroom of my mother’s New Jersey apartment, crying to my first love over the phone. The first man I have ever had sex with and, up to that point, the only person I have ever had sex with. The man I had been with since I was eighteen, and I am now a devastated twenty-one as he is telling me “it will be okay,” instead of “I am surprised.”
I tell him I did not have sex with anyone else. He says, “I know.” I ask him if he’s HIV positive. He says “I must be.” I ask him if he knew he was already. He says, “I don’t know.” I tell him I hate him. He says “I get it.”
***
That was just over seven years ago. I still do not know if he was aware he had HIV before I was. I still do not know whether or not he transmitted it to me on purpose. There are still so many questions left unanswered. Questions that my mother attempted to get to the root of while she was organizing a group of niggas to shoot up his apartment (which I eventually put a stop to). But today is not about those kinds of questions.
Today, I am preparing to shoot (no pun intended) my first statewide HIV advocacy campaign. In the years following that moment I spent on my mother’s bathroom floor, I have become an advocate. I speak to folks all across the nation about this disease, and, in particular, I speak about the anti-Black state of America’s implication in the perpetuating of this disease. As an HIV activist, I have turned lemons to lemonade. Made the best out of a bad situation. And now, I am being “rewarded” for it.
As a campaign spokesmodel, I will have my photo plastered on billboards, park benches, buses and train carts all throughout NYC. The messaging is focused on “stopping the stigma,” and how with medication you could live a “normal life” even if you are positive. But what intrigued me the most about this opportunity was the funding they offered to each spokesmodel. Whatever HIV focused project you wanted to do in your community would be fully funded by the powers that be. As someone who’s thrown events for years on my own dime, I was enthralled by the possibilities this offered. It wasn’t until I had to shoot the actual commercial that my vision became clearer.
The line read, “Medication helps to keep my HIV under control.” I was supposed to say it excitedly, with the sort of resolve that comes from a pile of stress lifting from your body. It should have been an easy task, right? That is a fair statement, correct? I mean, I do have an undetectable viral load. My T-Cells are doing well. No more headaches or swollen lymph nodes to report. But, for some reason, I couldn’t get myself to see past the NY State Health Department logo printed at the bottom of the cue cards.
What an interesting sentence for NY State to construct for me to say, given that 14 percent and rising of our nation’s homeless population resides in New York. Given that HIV/AIDS rates among the homeless in New York City is more than twice as high as among the general adult population, partly due to their inability to access the medication that helps keep HIV “under control.” Given that Governor Cuomo has still not made good on his own housing promises. Which begs the question, “Medication helps keep whose HIV under control?”
Realization after realization made it impossible for me to unearth the excitement the sentence demanded. “Does medication help keep your HIV under control?” An executive from the organization sarcastically asked in response to my steadily plummeting enthusiasm. To which I replied, “I don’t think I can do this.”
While gathering my bag and jacket, the head of outreach, who interviewed me for the position, stopped me and asked if I would be willing to talk it through. I tried to tell him about my thoughts on the state and it’s direct involvement in Black HIV rates. I tried to explain to him how campaigns like this help to bolster the narrative that the government is making strides for the people—when in actuality it’s not. I tried to explain to him my thoughts on abolition, and how divesting from all these anti-Black state apparatuses is the only way we could move towards a life without health disparities. I tried frantically to explain, to cite, and to apologize for not coming to this conclusion before even making the trip out.
He was kind, tried his best to understand, and said, “I hear you. And I think all that you are saying is great and important. This is why we want you. We want you to bring your perspective to the table.” I nodded my head, defeated by the fact that I still couldn’t get him to understand. He then said, “Honestly, our spokesmodels can really say whatever they want.” He then paused, and smirked at the perceived ridiculousness of his following statement, “I mean, come on, the only thing I could really see being a problem is if you encourage people to have unprotected sex. I mean like really, that’s the only line. We give complete freedom.”
***
I don’t give a fuck if you wear a condom. I don’t give a fuck if you take your medication. I don’t give a fuck if you disclosed to your partner. I don’t give a fuck about who gave it to whom. I don’t give a fuck about your T-Cell count. I don’t give a fuck about whether or not you’re virally suppressed. I don’t give a fuck about how many years you’ve been positive. When it comes down to the question of where I focus my energy—I just don’t give a fuck!
For so long I have been afraid to write those words. For so long I feared people calling me a monster, or a murderer. I feared what people may think of me. I feared that I would be blamed for the current state of the world we are in. But the fact is, there are far more people out there who do give a fuck about those things. Far more skilled and amazing counselors/advocates who make a living catering to those specific areas. Which is great. Which is important. But it just isn’t me.
For too long the societal conversation surrounding HIV began and ended on individuals and their actions. This focus oftentimes works as a distraction from all the factors at play surrounding said individual. The greatest advances in population health, especially in the twentieth century, were predicated on raising the general health of populations through social investments in drinking water, nutrition, safe housing, sanitation, and environmental safety, among other social investments. It was not predicated on individual responsibility, or punishment.
I give a fuck about how poverty drives the HIV epidemic. I give a fuck about how the inequality in health care continues to kill Black people. I give a fuck about the ramifications of unemployment on HIV care. I do not give a fuck about who has protected sex, or why.
Say I could prove that my first boyfriend did transmit to me on purpose, so I got him arrested, and sent to prison. What next? Especially since we know that prison populations bear a disproportionate share of the HIV infection burden, where HIV prevalence is approximately five times that of the general adult population. My sending him to prison wouldn’t be because I feared the perpetuation of HIV in my neighborhood. On the contrary, me having him arrested would actually just assist in raising the potential infection rate of my community, as these prisoners continue to be released.
So instead, my decision would be fueled by the desire to garner some idea of justice for myself. But we also know that the prison industrial complex exploits and targets the Black community. And given that the same forces that profit off of prison labor are the forces responsible for the conditions that incubate the perpetuation of this disease, this “justice” is actually just cementing that this continues to happen to more people.
So what do you do? For my mother the answer was getting my ex’s apartment shot up. Never did she mention calling the police. It’s not that my mother is a complete radical, she has no problem calling the cops on her neighbors if they are parked in her parking spot. But she’s lived long enough as a Black person to know that intimate, personal matters such as this could never be entrusted to that state. She believes that there are some issues that only her and her niggas can properly handle (while I would argue that it is all issues). For me, the answer was stopping her and finding a way to forgive him, while trying to move on with my life. I don’t think either response is particularly right or wrong. But I do know that neither response contributes to the perpetuation of this disease in the way that prisons do.
Intentionally infecting someone with a disease without their knowing, and without their consent, is fucked up, despicable, disgusting, violent, etc. No matter how many campaign’s state, “You can live a normal life with HIV,” it doesn’t erase the fact that an act like that changes someone’s life forever. I do believe that this sort of violence warrants a response. But prison is never the answer. What justice looks like outside of prison should always be left up to all of us to decide together in our own communities. It should never be left to the state that has targeted these communities for centuries.
Reading Suggestions
“America’s Hidden HIV Epidemic,” Linda Villarosa, NY Times (2017)
“A Body on Trial: The Conviction of HIV-Positive ‘Tiger Mandigo’,” Steven Thrasher, Buzzfeed (2015)
“Hunted by the State: HIV, Black folks, & how advocacy fails us,” Timothy DuWhite, Racebaitr (2017)
Timothy DuWhite is a black, queer, poz-writer/artist based out of Brooklyn, NY. A majority of his work circles around the intersections of state & body, state & love, and state & mind. All Timothy desires is a different/newer world for his sha-daughters, and believes the written word is one tool that could be used towards achieving that goal.
