COVID death celebration evokes memories of HIV death celebration

[Sympthsical]

As a young gay man, I had a very formative impression instilled in me in my developing years. When people on the Right (and sometimes not so much) were happy when someone they hated died of AIDS. And I'm not talking about the 1980s when HIV wasn't understood well, when transmission was a bit unknown, when the risks weren't fully understood.

I'm talking about in my lifetime, in my adolescence during the 90s and beyond. Rush Limbaugh had several infamous remarks about it. "I hope you get AIDS and die," was something still said when I was a teenager and trying to shape my identity and struggle out from the clouds of Catholic guilt and shame and society's broad disapproval of what my life would be.

It's inhumane. The people who engaged in it had no empathy. They barely saw the afflicted as people. They were the bad people, the people who deserved it. And yes, a lot of people in my community ended up getting it through bad choices. Risky sex. After they knew better, they still made those choices.

Ask yourself, were you there clapping when those people died from poor choices? Were you clapping when people who lacked sex education or received misinformation wasted away from a disease they walked into?

Maybe it's me, maybe I'm wired differently, but HIV and AIDS have existed my entire life. That cloud of death, that lost generation shaped and formed who I ultimately became as a gay man. I remember, when I was preteen or teen, nearly every gay movie I could find (which wasn't easy when sneaking into the local Blockbuster), was about death or grief or about whether or not a positive man and negative man should date. A sadness hovered over everything, that life and love were fleeting and always would be, because the plague coated everything in a dangerous film. Even in a happy film like "Jeffrey" someone had to suddenly die of AIDS by the end.

And the Right loved it. High five! Another one of those dead. Could you imagine if there was a subreddit called the Freddie Mercury Awards? Would you be ok with that?

I won't celebrate death and suffering. Even if that person thinks differently than me about politics. Even if that person made a poor decision that resulted in getting disease. Death to me is a sadness. When a terrible person dies, it's still a sadness, because I think about what that person's life could have been had they made different choices or had different opportunities.

Celebrating the death of the Other is something I grew up with. It's not something I'll ever share in. And when I see others do it, I think lesser of them.

Being a lesser person is always a choice.

JMHO.