Here we are, World AIDS Day, in a year of a new pandemic, a disease that's much easier to contract than AIDS, a disease that has no cure, a disease that like AIDS preys on the more vulnerable in our society.
Maybe all diseases target the more vulnerable. And our epidemiologist friends would remind us that diseases don't have emotions or calculations. Diseases infect where they can, and in vulnerable populations, diseases have more opportunity.
AIDS is still a fairly fierce disease, even though we have medications that can keep people alive for decades--that's still a lot of disease management, which isn't a cure. According to this site, there are still more than 17 million new AIDS cases each year. Every week, more than 13,000 people die of AIDS related diseases.
With vaccine news of the past weeks, I do expect that in years to come, COVID-19 will not kill as many of us. But it will still be a disease to be reckoned with, a disease that leaves lots of wreckage in its wake. Like AIDS, many of us will assume that COVID-19 has been tamed or disappeared. But like AIDS, some of us will be more protected than others.
Dec. 1 is also the anniversary of the day in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. This act is often given credit for launching the Civil Rights Movement, but what many forget is that various communities had begun planning for the launch, even before they could see or know what it would look like.
In fact, for generations, people had prepared for just such a moment. They had gotten training in nonviolent resistance. They had come together in community in a variety of ways. They were prepared.
I have seen enormous social change happen in my lifetime--in the face of such evidence, I must agree with Dr. Martin Luther King, who said the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.
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