“Get over it”: Reagan, AIDS, and Clinton apologists
This isn’t something I’m especially happy about writing, because I think generally the US liberal-left needs to stand together, but responses from many Clinton supporters to the latest controversy are so sickening and inexcusable that I’m actually currently trembling with upset and anger. What could provoke such a reaction? In truth just three words, and ones I’ve seen repeated over and over in the past hours:
“Get over it.”
Some background for those who haven’t heard what’s been going on. Talking about Nancy Reagan, Clinton praised her and her husband for their response to the AIDS crisis. For context, the Reagan administration did nothing but (literally) make jokes about the epidemic, and the first time it was even publicly addressed was in 1987 – by which point tens of thousands of queer people had died horrible deaths, often whilst forcibly separated from those they loved.
“Get over it.”
In my opinion nobody who claims to be an advocate for LGBT/Queer rights could make a mistake as large as praising the Reagans over HIV/AIDS, but to be fair we do all make mistakes (even me, somehow), and the best we can do is apologise for them – which Clinton (lukewarmedly) did. But it’s important to understand that many queer people are upset about this, and have the right to be so – particularly since right-wing news outlets are praising and repeating Clinton’s remarks. Yet over and over I’m seeing queer people told to
“Get over it.”
As though we have no right to be angry, as if all the lives lost to the disease matter less than the campaign opportunities of a politician. “There are bigger issues,” so we “shouldn’t dwell on this”, and you know what, I wouldn’t, were it not for straight Clinton supporters dismissing the concerns of LGBT/Q people. I’ve seen Dan Savage told to “stop the pearl clutching.” I’ve even seen younger queers told they have no right to be upset because they weren’t alive at the time – as though we have no right to our own history.
So you know what, though this was something I (and many others) would have grudgingly accepted as a mistake, the apologists mean I won’t “get over it” anytime soon. Queer people went through a decimation, and we – whatever generation we are – will not be silenced simply because our upset is inconvenient for your candidate. You will not shut us up because, as anyone with an actual knowledge of HIV/AIDS history knows, Silence = Death.
In solidarity,
Redfern
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