Dr. Cindi Love, Executive Director
In 1988, my brother, Patrick Leo Herndon, died of AIDS. He contracted HIV before the United States and pharmaceutical companies decided to invest in the survival of human beings living with and affected by HIV. Our family made an AIDSQuilt panel to honor him #4361. Over the past 26 years, I’ve learned a lot about what kills people with AIDS and who is most vulnerable. It isn’t what they do or don’t do. It is stigma that kills people and makes them vulnerable.
The only way to stop stigma is to choose a different way of thinking and being wherever you are. Institutions of power and privilege sanction stigma. People of power and privilege encourage stigma through class, gender, sexual orientation and race distinctions and separations. You have to choose to live your life outside of those sanctions. Each one of us has to choose and find a way to make our own contribution.
I felt powerless when my brother died. No one was talking about AIDS in my hometown. Many ministers would not conduct the funerals of people who died of AIDS in those days. The rejection of my brother by our community and members of my family deeply impacted my son who is also gay and my daughter who watched our family unravel.
After my brother died, my son Joshua and I decided to work together to help individuals and communities of spiritual and/or justice seeking practice root out stigma in their lives. He wrote a curriculum and a book called Uncommon Hope and visited 154 cities around the world to catalyze the intentions and work of groups.
I developed a workshop entitled Deconstructing Stigma: Let the Walls Fall Down and led it in places like the International AIDS Conference 2012 and the Amplify Conference in Hong Kong in 2013.
There are three questions that start that workshop and I ask you to think about your answers to them today.
- What is your earliest memory of a person stigmatizing you?
- What is your earliest memory of your stigmatization of another person?
- Do you recall a time when you stigmatized another person in the same way you were first stigmatized?
If we are honest, most of us can answer all three questions, but it is the last one that strikes at the heart of stigma in our society. Sadly, we often choose to repeat what was done to us or what we observed an authority figure in our lives do (parents, ministers, teachers, police).
And we can choose a different way.
On World AIDS Day 2014, you can choose to live in a state of mind we now call "HIV Neutral.” It may sound negative at first, but bear with me. HIV Neutral is a state of mind, regardless of your status, in which you are informed and aware of the constantly evolving state of HIV/AIDS. Living a "neutral" place is being a visible advocate in the fight to end HIV and the stigma that strengthens it. It is putting emphasis on the humanity of all people and not casting judgement because of their status, positive or negative. It is moving from passivity, speaking out and educating others.
Simply put, it is being able to make informed decisions about your social and sexual health. Because HIV is now classified as a chronic manageable condition, treatment is now focused on people living full and healthy lives.
To truly live "HIV Neutral," we must begin shifting towards a new way of thinking about HIV/AIDS. Moving away from thoughts full of death and sadness and towards thoughts of life and hope for the future. There is a new stigma project that is helping people all over the world make that shift. I had nothing to do with its formation. I want to share a video from that project today with the hope that you will create your own personal strategy for eradicating stigma and HIV/AIDS by 2025.
Watch the Stigma Project Video.