George M. Johnson could not have known about this moment in history when he wrote his memoir, All Boys Aren’t Blue, but for this white male reader, the sounds of courageous protestors in our streets were never far away. Johnson provides us an intimate, deceptively...
(This is a work of fan fiction, and Mr. Kramer loved it. See postscript below.) The mall was abuzz, with people darting in and out of stores, wrangling their kids and chatting on cell phones. I preferred it that way, because it kept Larry in a fairly calm state of...
There's isn't any way to discuss HIV Long Term Survivor Awareness Day (#HLTSAD) this year (Friday, June 5) without discussing racial disparities. For that matter, we should "lead with race," as NMAC's slogan goes, from this moment forward. I'm going to try better in...
There is a fact I have always wanted to argue. I thought I was different from those other white men. If you just had let me explain, just let me tell you about me, me, me, then you would surely see the real truth for yourself, proven by my decades as an HIV/AIDS and...
To commemorate HIV Vaccine Advocacy Day in Nigeria on Monday, May 18, I recorded a brief video as part of an awareness project for the New Vaccine and Microbicide Advocacy Society. My message was simple. Vaccines take time, factual science, and patience. I will never...
Circus of Books, the Netflix documentary premiering Wednesday, begins with old home video footage of a large and boisterous family during domestic mealtime chaos. Children are tugging sleeves for attention while parents shoo away the camera. It is a fitting opening...
There are trials by fire, and then there are trials by wildfire. Nursing student Brian Thomas never imagined his on-the-job education would transform into fighting on the very front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, or that he would be forced to take extreme safety...
The flyer was in my mailbox, folded and placed by an unknown neighbor. “NEED CORONAVIRUS HELP?” it read, explaining a local “Self-Quarantine Response Team” was here to support those “with compromised immune systems, those in quarantine – or even those who must work or...
People ask me if our lives today feel like the early years of HIV/AIDS, and I want to scream. There is no comparison. Just stop. No one cared about people dying of AIDS in the early years of the pandemic. The stock market didn’t budge. The President didn’t hold news...
Somewhere well into Every Grain of Sand, the mesmerizingly sad and ultimately transformative new memoir by recovering addict and sex worker David P. Wichman, the reader might wonder just how much more they can take. There are harrowing accounts of childhood abuse, of...
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