“We Have A F***ing President Who Won’t Even Recognize World AIDS Day!”

It was rare to see John Heilman lose his trademark soft spoken demeanor. We stood in front of the protest podium as Irwin Rappaport, former chair of the Foundation for the AIDS Monument, began to speak. There was a moment of remembrance. John Heilman was looking down at the floor of the memorial. He didn’t pick up his head.

Through the side of John’s glasses, I could see a rare moment of emotion from the City’s founding father.  I gently touched upon his shoulder.  John was not alone. We are not alone.  The wounds of years of war fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic was still omni-present. This would be the first time we could gather at the AIDS Monument on World AIDS Day in West Hollywood since the outset of the AIDS crisis at the start of Cityhood in 1984.

John Heilman stepped up to the podium shortly thereafter:

“I also want to ask us all to reflect for just a moment about all the people we lost, all of the people we lost, we lost here in West Hollywood, the people who worked for our City, the people who lived here, the people who played here. And I want us to reflect and GET ANGRY.

Because we should be ANGRY. We have a FUCKING PRESIDENT WHO WON’T EVEN RECOGNIZE WORLD AIDS DAY. What is wrong with that? We know why this is, right? Because who is impacted by HIV and AIDS? Gay men, people of color, women in the South, that’s the primary growth right now with HIV. He doesn’t care about any of us, and he doesn’t care about people in Africa.

We should be respecting the people we’re honoring tonight. We should make a commitment that we’re gonna be back out in the streets, because that’s what we need to do with respect to this administration. And we need to be taking this message not just here in West Hollywood, we need to be taking it all across the country. It is an outrage that we can prevent AIDS, that we can cure the disease, and this administration has turned its back on us. It has defunded all of the programs in Africa that were cutting the spread of HIV and providing treatment. It has cut PrEP. It has cut all of the programs that support our community, so please join me in getting mad, because that’s what we need to do to honor those people we are honoring tonight.”

Stories: The AIDS Monument is located @ 625 North San Vicente between Santa Monica Blvd. & Melrose.