Panem et circenses: Don’t be distracted
Stay angry. These hundred days have been enough to crush my spirit. The United States fired Tomahawk missiles on Syria, bombed Afghanistan and sent warships toward the Korean Peninsula, and I, for one, am suffering from Outrage Fatigue. While we’re distracted, the president has quietly sabotaged the Environmental Protection Agency, public school education, the National Endowment for the Arts and Planned Parenthood. While the president golfs, he threatens nuclear war.
The Roman poet Juvenal called such distractions panem et circenses (bread and circuses).
Thirtysomething years ago, Brian and I lived in a cold-water flat above a funeral parlor in Jersey City. The apartment was straight out of “La Bohème,” with starving artists and dancers and wannabe writers (that would be me). Eerie coincidence of art imitating life: One of our roommates, Freddie Walker, went on to star in the original cast of “Rent.” Because Brian and I were a couple, we got the big bedroom, complete with a waterbed. The waterbed had a small leak, which no one told me about, so I thought I was wetting the bed.
One evening, our apartment-mate Tim came home, sat down on the old red velvet couch, handed me a spoon, and opened a can of chocolate frosting. “Test came back: HIV-positive.”
In 1987, this was a death sentence. Someone died every half-hour from AIDS, and the only medicine on the market was AZT, a toxic chemical that cost $10,000 a year, clearly unaffordable to a guy working security on the midnight watch of the Museum of Natural History. The president refused to talk about it, distracting us instead with unpopular Supreme Court nominees, Iran-Contra and a Democratic presidential candidate having an affair.
We got angry. A group of like-minded individuals gathered at the Gay & Lesbian Center on 13th Street in Manhattan and formed the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). We wore T-shirts with the axiom Silence = Death. We protested at the New York Stock Exchange and the Brooklyn Bridge. We chanted, “How many more must die?” During Tim’s frequent cigarette-and-coffee breaks, he always asked me, “Just who is Harmony Moore, and why must she die?”
We were good little protesters. Tim and I called Brian every time we thought we might get arrested. We chanted, “Act up. Fight now. Fight AIDS.” But we were always colorful and always kind.
Most demonstrations were small acts of quiet insurrection. We wrote letters and called Congress. We spent one night stenciling red handprints around City Hall with Keith Haring.
We stayed angry. Oct. 11, 1988: I called in sick to my going-nowhere job at Macy’s, because Tim had organized the shutdown of the Food and Drug Administration in Washington, D.C., because the FDA was in the pocket of big-business pharmaceuticals.
This is why I’m a good peace officer today. I stood there in my black jeans and leather jacket, arm in arm with a line of protesters, as the Rockville, Md., cops raised their billy clubs and marched to arrest.
We did not have the majority. We did not have the numbers. We had only the truth.
Not sure of any good I’ve done in my life, but I know this: Soon after this action, the FDA agreed to introduce parallel-track testing, which is what sped up the introduction of new HIV drugs, which is what led to protease inhibitors and the cocktail therapy, which is how the virus became manageable.
Too late for Tim. He died from AIDSrelated complications a decade ago. But it’s not too late for me. Or you.
Most of the time, this column is about my family in the blue bungalow in the outer, outer, outer Excelsior, and frequently I ask what is the lesson that I teach my two sons?
Sitting at the kitchen table, I tell them I vote. I tell them that I called Sen. Kamala Harris’ office and asked her to protect our health care. I tell them that even though I’m a peace officer, I have absolutely no intention of enforcing the federal government’s immigration laws. When we’re in line to pick up a cheeseburger, I order an extra for the guy sitting on the pavement and I tell the boys that this may soon be the only Meals on Wheels left.
I tell them to ignore the bread and circuses.
Some days the only victory you can have is to continue fighting.
So stay angry. There are 1,365 days to go. Act up. Fight now. Be kind.
I stood arm in arm with a line of protesters as cops raised their billy clubs and marched to arrest.