Earlier tonight, I was watching an episode of American Masters about Dr. Anthony Fauci. It was a retrospective of his career, looking back not just at his role in recent years fighting the spread of COVID-19, but his earlier work during the start of the AIDS epidemic as well. It was a lucky coincidence for a couple of reasons. The first, and easy reason to explain is the fact that the title of today’s post was one of the Soundgarden song titles I had no idea how I was going to work into these. But the other reason is because I’ve been thinking about how and why we make the choices we make in the face of pandemics. The only conclusion I’ve come to is that, like a lot of our other choices here in the United States, it comes down to power and influence.
If we look at the start of both the AIDS and COVID-19 outbreaks, it seems like we didn’t take them seriously until they started entering our personal lives. And if you didn’t have someone close to you who was sick, from either of these, you had the luxury to almost ignore them. Or worse, blame people who were sick. We do this a lot, I feel like, and not just with epidemics.
Look at what’s happening to our banking system. In the last few weeks, a certain demographic of people in the U.S. basically caused institutions to fail based on nothing more than their emotions. But where was all this manic energy to save people’s money in 2008? Back then, it would have been just as prudent — and probably less expensive — to pay off the home mortgage loans for people who were being steamrolled by banks deemed “too big to fail” which were packaging and repackaging their homes and hopes for generational wealth in insipid schemes to pad the billions they were already making.
Over and over, we elect and reelect leaders who make decisions for the median demographic of their constituent population. We repeatedly ignore the marginalized in our communities, despite the overwhelming evidence that when we invest in those who are most in need, everyone ends up doing better. Just look at the work of Judy Heumann. But there’s no immediate profit in helping people. No financial gain in investing in teachers and school staff and students. No dividend in weening people off drugs. No cash in rehabilitating criminals. But when we don’t, these underserved students aren’t prepared for the work ahead of them. Those who are addicted pull services and resources away from other city needs. And our incarcerated population is left with few choices outside of shackles, if we ever even let them out.
Watching the Fauci story was just a reminder of what a missed opportunity these last few years have been. We could have made better choices. Selected more compassionate leaders. Rethought what and who is important. But instead, we’re back where we started. And heading in the wrong direction. If we’re not going to learn our lessons after 2020, then will we ever?
H.I.V. Baby
21 March 2023
Earlier tonight, I was watching an episode of American Masters about Dr. Anthony Fauci. It was a retrospective of his career, looking back not just at his role in recent years fighting the spread of COVID-19, but his earlier work during the start of the AIDS epidemic as well. It was a lucky coincidence for a couple of reasons. The first, and easy reason to explain is the fact that the title of today’s post was one of the Soundgarden song titles I had no idea how I was going to work into these. But the other reason is because I’ve been thinking about how and why we make the choices we make in the face of pandemics. The only conclusion I’ve come to is that, like a lot of our other choices here in the United States, it comes down to power and influence.
If we look at the start of both the AIDS and COVID-19 outbreaks, it seems like we didn’t take them seriously until they started entering our personal lives. And if you didn’t have someone close to you who was sick, from either of these, you had the luxury to almost ignore them. Or worse, blame people who were sick. We do this a lot, I feel like, and not just with epidemics.
Look at what’s happening to our banking system. In the last few weeks, a certain demographic of people in the U.S. basically caused institutions to fail based on nothing more than their emotions. But where was all this manic energy to save people’s money in 2008? Back then, it would have been just as prudent — and probably less expensive — to pay off the home mortgage loans for people who were being steamrolled by banks deemed “too big to fail” which were packaging and repackaging their homes and hopes for generational wealth in insipid schemes to pad the billions they were already making.
Over and over, we elect and reelect leaders who make decisions for the median demographic of their constituent population. We repeatedly ignore the marginalized in our communities, despite the overwhelming evidence that when we invest in those who are most in need, everyone ends up doing better. Just look at the work of Judy Heumann. But there’s no immediate profit in helping people. No financial gain in investing in teachers and school staff and students. No dividend in weening people off drugs. No cash in rehabilitating criminals. But when we don’t, these underserved students aren’t prepared for the work ahead of them. Those who are addicted pull services and resources away from other city needs. And our incarcerated population is left with few choices outside of shackles, if we ever even let them out.
Watching the Fauci story was just a reminder of what a missed opportunity these last few years have been. We could have made better choices. Selected more compassionate leaders. Rethought what and who is important. But instead, we’re back where we started. And heading in the wrong direction. If we’re not going to learn our lessons after 2020, then will we ever?
See you tomorrow?