San Francisco Examiner - June 4, 2001

Q: What is the status of HIV/AID prevention today?

A: We're concerned with the infection rates and how prevention isn't working. We argue about this about back and forth. Whenever I talk to straight folks about this -- whatever straight means -- they're always talking about "Where do you think it really came from?" And this is to really generalize but gay folk are less concerned with the origin of the virus, but really concerned how it impacts our communities.

Q: Is this looking for blame?

A: When I first started in 1987, I was 19. I was this young, dilettante, poseur Marxist and I knew that this was just a plot to get rid of people of color, poor people and all of the other crazies on the margins. But then as I moved along, the science fiction of that became less important. What became important was how this disease was impacting my immediate community. Because people started dying -- friends, people that I consider my family, people who hold my history.

I don't know if you remember, but through the early '90s you could almost trace not only the fascination with where the disease came from, but talks of the cure. Then that started to dissipate. Right?

I think it's pretty fascinating. We're not even talking about a cure anymore. There's some talk about a vaccine but it's nothing compared to just how do we live with HIV as a manageable disease. Because in mid-'90s, the FDA approved the wonder drugs. That's when folks finally said, "OK (big, theatrical sigh), enough with this disease." That's when a lot of the big Hollywood fund-raisers came to an end. A lot of the films and the movies about HIV started to disappear -- "Philadelphia," "Longtime Companions," "Parting Glances" -- those were part of the American cultural production, and then all of a sudden we hear nothing.

Q: Is this because AIDS has become a manageable disease?

A: That's not true. What we're finding primarily in poor communities -- in poor communities of color with a lot of gay folk -- the prevention messages aren't working. I've worked in prevention long enough to even question, "How much can we expect from prevention? What does good prevention look like?" Because it's not working! We're seeing an increase in youth rates of HIV. Now the faith-based communities have gotten involved, particularly the black community.

Q: Churches?

A: Yeah. I remember being in a meeting a couple of years ago -- a meeting of national representatives of project directors and executive directors of different AIDS agencies, it was a CDC sponsored meeting -- and it started with prayer. I realized -- looking around the room -- that it was a predominately African-American women from churches who were leading this prayer. Talking about how they needed to save their communities, and they were doing this through church.

I was a little panicked, because I remember a similar meeting 10 years ago, (he laughs mirthlessly) before a lot of the gay men started dying. That meeting was mostly gay men, with a strong, minority contingent of gay men of color. It totally changed hands. Now it's a different game and I don't know what's to become of it.

I don't know what good prevention is. I'm supposed to be one of the community representatives who knows about prevention, particularly in communities of color. But I don't know. I'm at a loss.

We've tried nationalism -- which was an interesting campaign. It was about loving your colored body, being in your colored body. We had messages like "Protect the Blood, Protect the Race." You know: "Black men loving Black men." What could that mean? If we were to just love and have sex with each other, it kind of pointed the disease to gay white men.

Q: That sounds racist.

A: It was a reaction. There was this belief that it was gay white men who were passing this disease. Giving it to us. And there was also a time when gay Asians were thought to be immune from this disease, and there was an increase in the personal ads for Asian boyfriends. So all these really interesting ways people thought about the disease, thought about how they could protect themselves from the disease ...

Q: When people are fearful thought processes get pretty tribal ...

A: Look, the white male body, at least in gay community or gay aesthetic, is still the focus of desire. The gay press reinforces, the world reinforces that. It's hegemonic. So it's not unreasonable, this emphasis of whiteness, and this campaign to look into why you have this desire, and almost how you can recover from it.

Q: Recovery?

A: To a certain extent it's liberating, it's empowering. You have to be able to question how do you know what you know. These are epistemological concerns. How do you know what you know. Because desire is constructed, right? So when they came up with these campaigns "To love yourself." White is correlated to masculinity, and being the other is feminine -- the conquered. That was a lot of the thinking around the campaign.

Q: Dr. Katz states that if only HIV-positive tops used condoms with HIV-negative bottoms, we could wipe out this disease.

A: I think that's a truth that a lot of gay men operate on.

Q: Then why is AIDS increasing?

A: But I don't know if it's white gay men giving it -- I mean I could speculate, but in my heart of hearts, I don't know. The numbers will tell you that there are more white men who have HIV but you can't just look at stats. You know about stats. There's obviously healthy room for questioning. So, again it goes back to knowing or having a clear grasp of what prevention is. The only thing I have a clear grasp on is a set of questions.

Q: What questions?

A: What is prevention? Are the methods that we've invested millions of dollars in -- Are they working? Will there ever be a cure? Are we as a society concerned with finding a cure?

Because I can certainly say -- and if it is paranoia, then let me be just be paranoid -- I think that the pharmaceutical companies have a lot to lose if this disease is not around. Ten, 15 years ago the boys that were running the show, for good or bad, really fought tooth and nail to keep the pharmaceutical companies out. Now the pharmaceutical companies are directly funding community-based organizations. Their presence at conferences and in the community has really grown. A lot of AIDS care, along with everything else, is hyper-capitalist. I think there's something really insidious about that.

Q: Are you optimistic or pessimistic?

A: I'm grieving. I'm really grieving. I don't know ... (a long thoughtful pause.) My particular grief encompasses both. I'm obviously still doing it, right? I guess that's telling. And here's the irony. I'm being asked to speak at this national conference on prevention with Dr. Anthony Fauchi and Dr. Helen Gayle, and all these big folks from NIH and the CDC and they want me to talk about prevention.

I'm going to tell them the same thing -- That I'm left with questions. A CDC bureaucrat and I were talking about the history of this disease, and I started talking about the Reagan-Bush administration. She got nervous. She said, "You know there's going to be a lot of press there." I said, "Good!" And she asked, "What are you going to say?"

(A long thoughtful pause while he smiles cryptically) Does my speech have to pass through the ministry of information? I'm so creeped out about all this stuff. I always hate to think in terms of science fiction but truth really is stranger than fiction.

Q: Do you trust the government?

A: In my experience that's been a major barrier. When trying to get these messages, these government-funded campaigns, into the black communities, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment always comes up. It's intense. I find myself working for the CDC but I'm still feeling really uncomfortable about it.
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