The arrival of December is synonymous with celebration, an escape from the daily grind of school and work, and time spent with loved ones. However, December 1 also marks World AIDS Day. People often overlook this day, which is intended to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS across the world.
But this day also brings about the opportunity to discuss a serious problem that is running rampant throughout North American mainstream media. What is often overlooked and brushed aside is the criminalization of people living with HIV and AIDS, along with the mainstream media’s contribution to this issue.
Let’s set the record straight. It is not a crime to live with HIV or AIDS.World AIDS Day is a day for everyone in our community, and across the world to reflect on the dominant messages that appear in North American media.
What is often perpetuated by the media can be interpreted as the vilification of people living with HIV or AIDS.
This is problematic for many reasons. The media and the law expect HIV-positive individuals to disclose their status to their sexual partners, completely ignoring the responsibility of the other person over their own sexual health, even though we’ve been bombarded with messages about practicing safe sex for decades.
This is not a black-and-white issue, and those impacted are at the mercy of media gatekeepers who choose how to frame a certain issue, or story.
The real problem with the criminalization of HIV in the media is that it diverts the audience’s perception of what is truly important. Instead of the media pointing out ways to prevent the spread of HIV, it merely acts as a distraction. By putting a face to a “crime,” all the media is doing is diverting attention away from responsible HIV testing, and the promotion of sexual health.
Furthermore, as HIV and AIDS continue to be criminalized in society, it only encourages those who might think they have HIV to live in fear. They would prefer to stay hidden in society, rather than seek counseling and support.
People living with HIV and AIDS are inevitably affected by how the media depicts them. The messages we consume hold a certain stigma that needs to be broken down, and the message reconstructed.
What needs to be said is that the media often does not have it right, and it needs to change.
Even the Canadian laws that define aggravated assault remain binary, with no room for interpretation. Canadian culture needs to change, and as a country that prides itself on diversity, we should not discriminate or think differently of those who live with HIV and AIDS.
What York needs, what Canada needs, is a much deeper understanding of this pressing issue. As a community, we need to develop a new critical perspective on how the media chooses to vilify those living with HIV and AIDS.
Express your opinion, write a blog, and speak up. When you see HIV and AIDS being criminalized in the media, take the leap and tell your peers that this is wrong. Start a discussion and look to make change.
We need to stop being silent, and we need to start being open to the idea of discussing this topic together. If you didn’t notice: two weeks ago, we printed a retraction. Excalibur published a news article on a student that allegedly had sex with a woman without disclosing to her that he was HIV positive. Because of various errors and poor judgment, we had to pull the issue off the stands.
Our editorial board has grown leaps and bounds from this experience, and together we have grown from this retraction.
This is a community paper, and as a community we all need to come together to change the way we perceive HIV and AIDS.
Michael Burton
Executive Editor (Online)
