The Age of AIDS
I'll be teaching kids about AIDS in the next couple of weeks (along with some other reproductive stuff). I found myself getting angry at a parent who wanted their child spared from any images of homosexuals with regard to AIDS, because I had mentioned sexual transmission in the letter home. Just to clarify...I didn't get angry TO her...but just angry at the thought of her issues. I kept my feelings quiet...until I got home, that is. The video I am hoping to use in class is of an 11-year-old boy who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. Now I will have to preview it for any imagery of homosexuals and call her to make sure she is OK with whatever I discover. And if she doesn't want him to see a homosexual (um, does she want to know that we have homosexual students?), then I will have to (1) find a special home for him in another class for a day and (2) provide him with something relevant and useful to do for that hour that does not mention homosexuality.
I wonder why Americans are so obsessed with labeling AIDS...STILL...a homosexual disease. I've been watching Frontline's 4-hour special The Age of AIDS, which is really good. It does a nice job of focusing on all the different pieces of who got sick and how, and how we've dealt with it politically and scientifically. I wish I could force the kids to sit through all 4 hours, although they'd tune it out. I'm just disturbed by this parent. Ignorance.
I think you'll be able to watch The Age of AIDS online Friday at 5 PM ET, if you're interested.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/
A picture of the AIDS quilt, to make this quilt-related.
posted by vrgnamgnta @ 9:12 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Here in the bay area we have 4 (5?) PBS stations. I've been watching the The age of AIDS in bits every evening. I think I still learned something. It's a very good production.
Good luck teaching the kids. It's a bit incredible to think that those who are graduating college this year have lived their entire life with this disease.
It sounds as if this woman is not interested in labeling the disease as gay so much as labeling herself anti-gay. Tribalism is alive and well.
She's the only one that had an issue, though. So her tribe is pretty dang small, at least those who will stand up and declare themselves.
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