{"id":51,"date":"2020-11-05T09:25:59","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T14:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-lweitzen\/?page_id=51"},"modified":"2020-12-13T14:41:49","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T19:41:49","slug":"your-choosing-i","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-lweitzen\/your-choosing-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Political Legacy of AIDS: Part One &#8211; The Reagan Administration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>I am using my extra sections to examine political legacy AIDS, which is undoubtedly one of the most salient leftovers from this crisis. Today, this legacy manifests most dominantly in two ways: first, in the tarnished legacy of the Reagan Administration, and second, as a catalyst for gay politics.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Reagan Administration&#039;s Chilling Response to the AIDS Crisis\" width=\"580\" height=\"326\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yAzDn7tE1lU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Reagan Administration\u2019s silence on AIDS is perhaps most telling of the administration\u2019s prejudice and indifference towards victims; Reagan himself gave the American public no substantial words regarding the disease or any intention to address it until six years after the disease was first reported on in America and tens of thousands of Americans had died. However, other members of Reagan\u2019s administration did address the disease: most notably Reagan\u2019s press secretary Larry Speaks, who, in a series of press conferences between 1983 and 1884, deflected questions regarding the administration\u2019s plans to address the mounting crisis with homophobic jokes, all of which are recorded. The audio recording of two of these interactions is linked above; analysis of Speaks\u2019 responses is truly revealing of the homophobia behind Reagan\u2019s refusal to act.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">First, the willful, sarcastic, and indifferent way Speaks pretends to be unaware of the AIDS crisis is truly shocking. The first conference where Speaks was asked to address the crisis was in 1983, when over 1,000 Americans had died of AIDS. Reporter Lester Kinsolving asked if the President had any reaction to the mounting crisis, to which Speaks replied \u201cAIDS? I haven&#8217;t got anything on it.\u201d This pseudo-ignorance of the disease continued to define Speaks\u2019 responses to AIDS questions at another press conference in 1984, when over 4,000 Americans had died of the disease. When responding to the question \u201cis the president concerned about AIDS,\u201d Kingsolver claims he has not \u201cheard him express concern,\u201d before claiming he had not \u201casked him about it.\u201d The homophobic associations with AIDS were so strong at this time that to even express concern for the virus and its victims was to expose <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">oneself<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to homophobic belittlement; Speaks\u2019 refusal to acknowledge his own awareness of the disease highlights the degree to which the Reagan administration valued its masculine, conservative image over the lives of the people over which it presided.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This sentiment is further highlighted in the most horrific aspect of these recordings: the homophobic jokes. Reporter Kinsolving insisted in the 1983 press conference that AIDS was a \u201cpretty serious thing\u201d and that \u201cone in every three people that get this have died,\u201d to which Speaks responded \u201cI don&#8217;t have it. Do you?\u201d This response induced a wave of laughter from the press pool. Kinsolving continues to attempt to ask his question but is repeatedly drowned out by Speaks\u2019 not-so-subtle accusation that Kinsolving has AIDS (\u201cYou didn&#8217;t answer my question. How do you know?\u201d) until Kinsolving finally asks \u201cDoes the president \u2014 in other words, the White House \u2014 look on this as a great joke?\u201d Speaks deflects this question through more pseudo-ignorance, once again claiming to not know anything about the disease.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That the face of the Reagan administration felt comfortable publicly joking about a disease which was killing thousands of its own citizens is chilling. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the deflective jokes and the \u201cjocular\u201d reaction of the press pool emphasize the extent to which the system as a whole was riddled with homophobia\u2014when Kinsolving accused Speaks and the press pool of their \u201cjocular reaction\u201d at the 1984 conference, an unidentified reporter yelled \u201cit isn&#8217;t only the jocks, Lester!\u201d The readiness of the other reporters in the room to bolster and contribute to the belittlement of anyone who mentioned AIDS is a potent and gut-wrenching example of the hostile political environment and lack of support AIDS victims were submitted to throughout the eight years of Reagan\u2019s presidency.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is also worth noting that even Kinsolving, the one entity in these recordings who seems to be genuinely intent on spurring the Reagan administration into action regarding AIDS, spreads misinformation through his questioning. He asked in 1984 if the president was aware \u201cthat an estimated 300,000 people have been exposed to AIDS, which can be transmitted through saliva,\u201d which is untrue; AIDS can only be transmitted through \u201cblood, semen, pre-cum, rectal fluids, vaginal fluids, and breast milk\u201d (Lopez).<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The suggestion by a reporter that AIDS could be transmitted through saliva three years into the crisis is evident of both the paranoia surrounding AIDS which had gripped the country at this time and the overwhelming lack of medical research into the disease, a result of the homophobia depicted above. Furthermore, his questions in the latter conference are framed to avoid mentioning the queer community; he asks if the president would \u201ctake steps to protect armed forces, food, and medical services from AIDS patients,\u201d rather than inquiring about what steps the president was taking to protect AIDS victims themselves, to avoid appearing aligned with the homosexual community and facing further taunting in the unsympathetic and homophobic environment of Reagan\u2019s press conferences.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am using my extra sections to examine political legacy AIDS, which is undoubtedly one of the most salient leftovers from this crisis. Today, this legacy manifests most dominantly in two ways: first, in the tarnished legacy of the Reagan Administration, and second, as a catalyst for gay politics. The Reagan Administration\u2019s silence on AIDS [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-51","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-lweitzen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-lweitzen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-lweitzen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-lweitzen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-lweitzen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-lweitzen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/history-2203-fall-2020-lweitzen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}