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Randy Shilts QUOTES

Randy Shilts QUOTES

1 " Most importantly, the epidemic was only news when it was not killing homosexuals. In this sense, AIDS remained a fundamentally gay disease, newsworthy only by the virtue of the fact that it sometimes hit people who weren't gay, "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

2 " Don’t offend the gays and don’t inflame the homophobes. These were the twin horns on which the handling of this epidemic would be torn from the first day of the epidemic. Inspired by the best intentions, such arguments paved the road toward the destination good intentions inevitably lead. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

3 " Insanity triumphed because sane people were silent. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

4 " Prejudice makes prisoners of both the hated and the hater. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

5 " In politics, the players jockey for power; in academia, they play for vanity, a far more compelling instinct that could conjure far more vindictive punishment. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

6 " Humans who have been subjected to a lifetime of irrational bigotry on the part of a mainstream society can be excused for harboring unreasonable fears. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

7 " How very American, he thought, to look at a disease as homosexual or heterosexual, as if viruses had the intelligence to choose between different inclinations of human behavior. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

8 " What society judged was not the severity of the disease but the social acceptability of the individuals affected with it… "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

9 " We will not have any of these cases in the Soviet Union,” said a Soviet delegate confidently. Don Francis couldn’t resist saying to Marc Conant in his loudest stage whisper, “And they won’t, all right.” In a stern Russian accent, Francis continued: “You have AIDS—bang, bang, bang.” The Soviets were not amused. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

10 " The bitter truth was that AIDS did not just happen to America—it was allowed to happen by an array of institutions, all of which failed to perform their appropriate tasks to safeguard the public health. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

11 " In her only departure from her prepared text, Heckler added, “We must conquer AIDS before it affects the heterosexual population and the general population…. We have a very strong public interest in stopping AIDS before it spreads outside the risk groups, before it becomes an
overwhelming problem.”

The statement infuriated organizers from AIDS groups who considered AIDS already an “overwhelming problem” and did not consider it a priority of AIDS research to stop the scourge only “before it affects the heterosexual population.” Moreover, many gay leaders wondered who had determined that homosexuals were not part of the “general population” that so concerned the Secretary. "

― Randy Shilts

12 " If you don't abide by scientific principles, chaos will ensue. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

13 " There was no excuse, in this country and in this time, for the spread of a deadly new epidemic. For this was a time in which the United States boasted the world’s most sophisticated medicine and the world’s most extensive public health system, geared to eliminate such pestilence from our national life. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

14 " The closeted homosexual is far less likely to demand fair or just treatment for his kind, because to do so would call attention to himself. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

15 " Later, everybody agreed the baths should have been closed sooner; they agreed health education should have been more direct and more timely. And everybody also agreed blood banks should have tested blood sooner, and that a search for the AIDS virus should have been started sooner, and that scientists should have laid aside their petty intrigues. Everybody subsequently agreed that the news media should have offered better coverage of the epidemic much earlier, and that the federal government should have done much, much more. By the time everyone agreed to all this, however, it was too late.
Instead people died. Tens of thousands of them. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

16 " In those early years, the federal government viewed AIDS as a budget problem, local public health officials saw it as a political problem, gay leaders considered AIDS a public relations problem, and the news media regarded it as a homosexual problem that wouldn’t interest anybody else. Consequently, few confronted AIDS for what it was, a profoundly threatening medical crisis. "

― Randy Shilts

17 " Legionnaire’s disease hit a group of predominantly white, heterosexual, middle-aged members of the American Legion. The respectability of the victims brought them a degree of attention and funding for research and treatment far greater than that made available so far to the victims of Kaposi’s sarcoma.
I want to emphasize the contrast, because the more popular Legionnaire’s disease affected fewer people and proved less likely to be fatal. What society judged was not the severity of the disease but the social acceptability of the individuals affected with it…. I intend to fight any effort by anyone at any level to make public health policy regarding Kaposi’s sarcoma or any other disease on the basis of his or her personal prejudices regarding other people’s sexual preferences or life-styles "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

18 " On June 21, AIDS patients at George Washington University Hospital opened their eyes to see a woman in a white linen gown moving among them. She wore no mask or gloves and was not afraid to approach their beds and ask the young men about their illness. Mother Teresa came to visit the AIDS patients directly from the White House, where President Reagan, who had yet to acknowledge the disease, had awarded her the Medal of Freedom. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

19 " I was in Nebraska yesterday and when I said I was going to San Francisco, people started talking about AIDS,” Kurtis said, smiling. “Somebody said, ‘What’s the hardest part about having AIDS?’” Kurtis paused for his punch line: “It’s trying to convince your wife you’re Haitian.” An uncomfortable laugh skimmed the surface of the crowd. Most people did not think it was funny. Several reporters nodded knowingly to each other, as if to say, “This is what you can expect from somebody who lives in New York.” Kurtis clearly had misjudged his audience. Nevertheless, the joke reflected the dormant feeling among national news organizations, all of which were headquartered in Manhattan. AIDS remained something of a dirty little joke. Moreover, it was something you could josh about in crowds of reporters because you could safely assume that the disease had not touched the lives of the people who wrote the news and scripted the nightly newscasts. Homosexual reporters, particularly in New York, tended to know their place and keep their mouths shut, if they wanted to survive in the news business. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

20 " Newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post solemnly insisted that they did not discriminate against an employee on the basis of sexual orientation. In practice, however, such papers never hired employees who would openly say they were gay, and homosexual reporters at such papers privately maintained that their careers would be stalled if not destroyed once their sexuality became known. Gays were tolerated as drama critics and food reviewers, but the hard-news sections of the paper had a difficult time acclimating to women as reporters, much less inverts. Few in the business ever talked about this. American journalism was always better at defining others’ foible than its own. "

― Randy Shilts , And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic