October 11, 2024 • 23 mins
We are living at a time filled with tents of fear and silos of disinformation. Craig Bowers of APLA Health joins to discuss the 40th anniversary of AIDS Walk LA and the importance & difficulty of continuing to move forward.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to OKF Daily with Meet
Your Girl. Daniel Moody. Pre recording from California, where I
am traveling, folks. A couple of things before I get
into today's episode one. It is just outright shocking to
(00:32):
me that we are existing in a time when half
of the population is in occult and doing themselves an
extraordinary disservice in the midst of these horrific climate change catastrophes,
(00:53):
to deny themselves aid, to deny themselves facts in order
to continue to follow Donald Trump, who is leading them
off of a cliff. It was astounding to me that
the President of the United States had to get on
television to tell people that hurricanes are not man made.
(01:15):
It was absolutely unfathomable to believe that the President of
the United States would have to say that if you
take the seven hundred and fifty dollars worth of BEAMA
emergency aid, we're not going to seize your home. The
lies are reckless. They deserve litigation and accountability because they
(01:40):
are costing people their lives and their livelihood. And I
just don't know when it is ever ever going to stop.
This election. Right now, is raizor thin and is going
to be decided by a handful of voters in a
handful of states, And that to me is terrifying, as
(02:02):
I know it is to all of you. It is
just not right where we find ourselves where we are,
and I am really scared. I'm gonna be honest with you,
it is really scary where we find ourselves right now.
(02:22):
And I don't know. I don't know, dear friends, how
this election is going to turn out. I don't know
if it will go the way that we need it to.
But I do know that we are going to need
each other more than ever moving forward, regardless of the outcomes,
because the people that are working tirelessly to separate us,
(02:47):
to divide us, and to create these tents of fear,
these silos of fear and disinformation, are never going to stop.
And we have to steel ourselves, fortify ourselves for that truth,
and work outside of our fear silos to connect with
one another again. Coming up next, I'm very happy to
(03:10):
welcome to wok af Daily Craig Bowers, who has been
working with APLA Health on their fortieth anniversary of the
AIDS Walk in Los Angeles. The theme for this year's
(03:30):
AIDS Walk is We're not walking back. And you know,
in this conversation, Craig goes into the history and reminding
us of where this country was in the eighties when
AIDS was killing tens of thousands of people. I remember
(03:50):
the quilts, I remember the protests by act UP, I
remember just the devastation, and I remember mostly the indifference
of the Reagan administration. To think how far we have
come as a country in forty years is really extraordinary.
(04:14):
But to think about the generation of queer people that
were lost is just enormous, an enormous hole that will
never be refilled. And so this conversation with APLA Healths
(04:36):
Craig Bowers was eye opening and a really important reminder
that while we continue to forge a path forward, we
have to always remember where we came from. So that
conversation with Craig Bowers is coming up next, folks. I
(04:59):
am very happy to welcome to f Daily the Chief
Marketing and External Affairs Officer of APLA Health, Craig Bauers,
who is joining us today to talk about the fortieth
anniversary of the AIDS Walk in Los Angeles and their
bold theme of we're not walking back. Craig, welcome to you.
(05:24):
Talk to us first about APLA Health and then talk
to us about this important theme on this very big anniversary.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah. So, the origins of APLA Health as it's known today,
when we were originally founded forty one years ago, we
were known as AIDS Project Los Angeles, and this was
an organization essentially just set up by peers in the community.
So once HIV and AIDS started to become known, there
(05:56):
really was not a lot of information out there for
the general public. So AIDS Project Los Angeles was created
as a way to kind of gather and disseminate information
to community members that we're facing an epidemic and really
there weren't a lot of information or resources available to them.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
You know. I feel that it's important for us to
have this conversation, one because your walk is coming up
on October thirteenth, but also because I don't know about you,
but I don't feel as if we talk about HIV
and AIDS the way that we once did probably ten
twenty years ago, where it was a part of regular
(06:39):
conversation about preventative measures, about what are the effects and
what are the medications that folks are taking and how
to protect yourselves. Why do you think that that has
changed so much?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Well, I think it kind of dovetails into our theme
this year of we're not walking back, but also simultaneously
celebrating forty years of progress. You know, most people don't
realize if you're not of a certain age that for
the first fifteen years of this, if you became HIV positive,
(07:14):
that was essentially an automatic death sentence. There were no
drugs that were going to keep you alive. And so
until nineteen ninety six with the introduction of anti retroviral therapies,
this disease was essentially a death sentence. And APLA in
(07:36):
its origins, was really about disseminating information but also preparing
people for the inevitable realities of the disease. Right, And
so to your point, I think that we've made a
lot of progress against this disease over the course of
over forty years, and so it's not the automatic death
(08:00):
sentence that it used to be. In fact, it's a
very treatable and livable condition at this point. So for that,
we're extremely thankful and there's a lot of people that
did a lot of hard work convincing the federal government
that this was a serious problem, a problem to be
taken seriously. So in that regard, you know, things have
(08:22):
changed dramatically. That doesn't mean that HIV is not out there,
but it basically means that our tools that we have
in order to prevent people from getting HIV in the
first place and to get people in the medical treatment
if they do have the disease has dramatically shifted over
the course of greater than forty years.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
You know, there was a time, and I want to
say it was around the time when I was still
living in Washington, d C. I want to say that
it was probably the early twenty tens when there was
actually a spike in HIV and AIDS in the LGBTQ community,
but particularly for black queer men. And I want to
talk about, you know, ask you about the ways in
(09:07):
which what does education look like these days, particularly for
younger queer folks who don't have the memory, who don't
have the deep memory and understanding of the devastation that
was caused at the beginning of the crisis in the
eighties and the early nineties, that kind of think that
it's no big deal like, how do you work to
(09:30):
educate so that we don't have spikes that happen inside
of the community.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I think that that's a complex problem that deserves a
complex set of answers. Let's back up a second and
just talk about America's healthcare system that really has not
effectively served black and brown people. And so we're talking
about this system that has not worked particularly well, that
(09:59):
hasn't been particularly welcoming to LGBTQ plus people either. Right, So,
when we talk about the disease state today, unfortunately, because
of that medical reality, this disease is more of a
black and brown disease, and it's more of a disease
(10:19):
that is prevalent in places that have not expanded Medicaid.
During the introduction of Obamacare, and with Obamacare, Medicaid became
the vehicle to deliver health services to low income people,
regardless of if you were single or a male, or
it really expanded who was eligible for Medicaid services. And
(10:43):
in the states that have expanded Medicaid, you've really seen
a large uptake in these preventative measures to prevent people
from getting HIV medically that you haven't really seen in
non Medicaid expansion states which are predominant elite states that
are known as red states.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
And I think that that is and I appreciate that
because that is a very fair point to really underscore that.
I mean, we can talk about the beginning as well
in terms of the negligence by the Reagan administration, the
blatant negligence, right, and how racial discrimination and you know,
homophobia and transphobia have played a major role in terms
(11:26):
of weaponizing our healthcare system against black, brown, and queer
folks and those that live at the intersections. In terms
of younger people, Generation Z and what have you, what
does the education for that community look like versus older generations.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I think that the younger generations have an opportunity to
get into healthcare. That is what I would call culturally affirming, right.
You know, when I was a young man, the idea
of me having an LGBTQ plus medical professional that I
went to for council that understood the differences in my
(12:10):
lifestyle versus a heterosexual counterpart, for example, that really didn't exist. Yeah. Yeah,
And so I'm not saying that that's prevalent everywhere today,
But what I'm saying is we've come lie years ahead
of where we were. And so for me, particularly at
APLA Health, you know, ten years ago, we weren't a
(12:32):
healthcare organization, but with the introduction of Obamacare, we opened
up our first what's called a federally qualified health center,
and in fact, on October third, we're celebrating our ten
year anniversary of that first facility, and now later this fall,
we're opening up our eighth healthcare facility here in Los
(12:53):
Angeles County. So to go from zero to nineteen thousand
patients over the course of ten years, and the majority
of those patients are members of the LGBTQ plus community,
it just really demonstrates how far we've come in terms
of reaching this audience and trying to address their overall
health issues, HIV being obviously a major component of that,
(13:16):
but not certainly not all of that, you know, in
terms of talking about health, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And it's so true because I can I can remember
being very young, being on you know, for instance, being
on my college campus and needing to go to see
a medical professional, you know, and they're checking off all
of the list of questions that they ask and being
at that time it was you know, late nineties, early
(13:41):
two thousands, like being fearful of saying that I was queer,
right being you know, not wanting to be judged, not
wanting to you know, like I have always moved in
a way to brace myself for that moment when you
you know, to kind of prepare for the discrimination that
you could face and like what would you say and
how will you respond? But thinking that it is extraordinarily
(14:04):
important to provide young people with the skills, with the
information that they need so that if they don't have
somebody that is not affirming that they know how to respond,
that they can go in feeling competent and like resolute
in the care that they need.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know you still even see it today.
You know, certain people will go to mainstream institutions for
their medical care, but when it comes to their sexual
health care, they're still doing those at LGBTQ plus organizations.
So they've really kind of siloed their healthcare in areas
(14:44):
that are you know, reasonable for them.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
You know, what does it mean for you all? I
mean and you know, and congratulations on the on the
ten years and the amount of patients that you have
been able to see during that time. What does it mean,
you know, when you're talking to and can connecting with
these folks to have this kind of facility. Now you're
said you're moving into I think your eight through your
(15:07):
ninth that you're opening. What does it mean for folks
to have this kind of access? And you know, as
we're in the midst of an election season and cycle
where things could drastically change for the worse, how does
your organization brace itself for the navigating what could be
potentially a really precarious and dangerous political landscape.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
You know, I ironically, you know, this conversation is about AIDS,
WALK and HIV and AIDS really created a political movement
for the LGBTQ plus community, and we see the through
lines through that from health equity, marriage equality, to what's
happening right now in the political system. So, you know,
(15:54):
I don't think that this is anything new for the
LGBTQ plus community. I think what's new, particularly to some
of the younger people, is that just because necessarily we
advance our cause doesn't necessarily mean that there are people
working in opposition to that, and certain advances that we
have may be taken away. So I think that the
(16:16):
meta point is that you always have to remain politically active.
You always have to remain alert, you know. As a
part of my responsibilities for the organization, I oversee our
government affairs team, and we work at a local, state
and national level in order to affect positive governmental outcomes
(16:39):
and policies for people living with HIV as well as
LGBTQ plus people overall. You know, in the state of California,
as an example, you pay no out of pocket expenses
for PREP, which is the prophylactic use of HIV medication
to prevent you from getting HIV. That just didn't happen.
Many People Organization and other allied organizations put the pressure
(17:04):
to bear on the state of California in order to
ensure that that's a real thing. So Obamacare made PREP
you know, a part of the overall insurance package, but
it didn't prevent insurance companies from asking for copays, and
some of those copays were quite expensive, you know what
I mean. So even though you weren't paying the full
freight of the medication, you were still paying out of pocket.
(17:26):
And now in the state of California, essentially you do
not pay out of pocket for PREP. So these are
examples of you know, that's just one example of the
work that we're consistently doing in order to make sure
that people have access to these life saving medical therapies
in order to prevent people from becoming HIV and similarly
(17:47):
people who are HIV positive, preventing them from being able
to pass along the virus to others and remaining undetected.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
What do you think needs to be done in terms
terms of the larger you know, society, really kind of
understanding the needs of the community and what we should
be asking for from those that represent us in government.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
You know, I think that there's a lot of intersectionality here.
I don't think this just starts to stop for the
LGBTQ plus community. I think it's you know, I think
the black community has a lot of things to contribute
to this conversation, and I think it's important if we're
talking about HIV. I think everyone knows this is not
exclusively a gay disease, although it predominantly affects gay men,
(18:38):
But there's other people in this conversation. There's trans folks
that need to be really at the forefront of this conversation.
Black women need to be at the forefront of this conversation,
particularly in the eastern seaboards and cities and Red States.
So I think there's a broader conversation it needs to
takes place. I think there's an intersectional conversation that needs
(19:01):
to take place, And I think it fundamentally comes down
to what do we want to see as a society.
If one person is sick, are we all sick, you
know what I mean? Or are we just saying that
I'm good and You've got to fend for yourself. And unfortunately,
our healthcare system kind of veers towards the latter, and
I think we all need to work together to figure
(19:21):
out how we create a system that's more equitable for everyone.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I agree wholeheartedly. I think that that is incredibly important
for us not to operate in silos. Like different communities
have different needs and have been marginalized in different ways.
But at the end of the day, it is really
looking at having a robust and equitable healthcare system that
tends to all of our needs. With the time that
(19:46):
we have left, please tell us a bit more about
the AIDS walk, what people can expect, how they can
connect and get involved.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, absolutely so. As you said earlier, AIDS walk will
be happening on Sunday, October thirteen here in Los Angeles
at West Hollywood Park starting at ten am. You know,
AIDS Walk at Los Angeles is the first AIDS Walk
in the world, So there was no Aid's Walk before
the first one occurred in Los Angeles. The original one
(20:15):
took place on the Paramount Lot and it helped raise
money to just again do anything that we could to
figure out what was going on in our community. It's
really hard for people to understand that when this virus
first became publicly known, there just really was not a
(20:36):
lot of information out there, and that spanned for years,
and so there was a tremendous amount of fear, there
was a tremendous amount of unknowns, and a lot of
people were dying. So, you know, those first couple of
decades of this walk were really sad affairs, but also
(20:57):
the first instances of the community coming together, fundraising amongst
ourselves and really trying to create greater awareness. Now, forty
years later, this event still exists. HIV still exists, but
the difference is now is that we have a medical
means to end this disease right now. So if everyone
(21:18):
who was not HIV positive protected themselves using some of
these new advancements and tools that we have. And if
everyone who was HIV positive got to an undetectable level
using the medications that we have available, this virus really
would have nowhere to go. So when we come together
for AIDS WALK today, we come together to remember those
(21:39):
that we've lost. I mean, the gay community lost an
entire generation, right, I mean, and I don't think people
have really processed that. But you know, if you look
at gay men of a certain age, there is a
huge hole there that we cannot get back. And I
think for us celebrating forty years of progress is hey,
(22:03):
look things have changed dramatically, but we still have more
to go. We still have more to go to figure
out how do we resolve these equity situations in which
black and gay Latino men are still the majority of
people contracting this virus today, whereas for people who have insurance,
those numbers have gone down dramatically. So this is something
(22:26):
that we can solve, but it takes a greater community,
greater awareness, responsibility throughout the healthcare profession. It just takes
a lot of actors in order to make sure that
we kind of close the loop on all of this
and in this disease in our lifetime.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Craig, I can't thank you enough for the work that
you are doing with APLA Health and the work that
APLA Health has done in the community for the community
for decades. Really appreciate you coming on to OOKF and
one to help us from member give us context and
education about how far we've come, but also provide us
(23:05):
with an understanding of what needs to be done in
the future to eradicate the disease moving forward. Really appreciate
you and congratulations on the amazing anniversaries.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
And thank you guys for having me. And if anyone
wants to learn a little bit more about this, please
check out our documentary and title Commitment to Life, which
is streaming on Peacock and it really gives you a
nice concise understanding of where we were and where we
are today.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Thank you, Thank you for that. Appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Take care.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
That is it for me today, Dear friends on wokef
as always power to the people and to all the people. Power,
get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to OKF Daily with Meet
Your Girl. Daniel Moody. Pre recording from California, where I
am traveling, folks. A couple of things before I get
into today's episode one. It is just outright shocking to
(00:32):
me that we are existing in a time when half
of the population is in occult and doing themselves an
extraordinary disservice in the midst of these horrific climate change catastrophes,
(00:53):
to deny themselves aid, to deny themselves facts in order
to continue to follow Donald Trump, who is leading them
off of a cliff. It was astounding to me that
the President of the United States had to get on
television to tell people that hurricanes are not man made.
(01:15):
It was absolutely unfathomable to believe that the President of
the United States would have to say that if you
take the seven hundred and fifty dollars worth of BEAMA
emergency aid, we're not going to seize your home. The
lies are reckless. They deserve litigation and accountability because they
(01:40):
are costing people their lives and their livelihood. And I
just don't know when it is ever ever going to stop.
This election. Right now, is raizor thin and is going
to be decided by a handful of voters in a
handful of states, And that to me is terrifying, as
(02:02):
I know it is to all of you. It is
just not right where we find ourselves where we are,
and I am really scared. I'm gonna be honest with you,
it is really scary where we find ourselves right now.
(02:22):
And I don't know. I don't know, dear friends, how
this election is going to turn out. I don't know
if it will go the way that we need it to.
But I do know that we are going to need
each other more than ever moving forward, regardless of the outcomes,
because the people that are working tirelessly to separate us,
(02:47):
to divide us, and to create these tents of fear,
these silos of fear and disinformation, are never going to stop.
And we have to steel ourselves, fortify ourselves for that truth,
and work outside of our fear silos to connect with
one another again. Coming up next, I'm very happy to
(03:10):
welcome to wok af Daily Craig Bowers, who has been
working with APLA Health on their fortieth anniversary of the
AIDS Walk in Los Angeles. The theme for this year's
(03:30):
AIDS Walk is We're not walking back. And you know,
in this conversation, Craig goes into the history and reminding
us of where this country was in the eighties when
AIDS was killing tens of thousands of people. I remember
(03:50):
the quilts, I remember the protests by act UP, I
remember just the devastation, and I remember mostly the indifference
of the Reagan administration. To think how far we have
come as a country in forty years is really extraordinary.
(04:14):
But to think about the generation of queer people that
were lost is just enormous, an enormous hole that will
never be refilled. And so this conversation with APLA Healths
(04:36):
Craig Bowers was eye opening and a really important reminder
that while we continue to forge a path forward, we
have to always remember where we came from. So that
conversation with Craig Bowers is coming up next, folks. I
(04:59):
am very happy to welcome to f Daily the Chief
Marketing and External Affairs Officer of APLA Health, Craig Bauers,
who is joining us today to talk about the fortieth
anniversary of the AIDS Walk in Los Angeles and their
bold theme of we're not walking back. Craig, welcome to you.
(05:24):
Talk to us first about APLA Health and then talk
to us about this important theme on this very big anniversary.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah. So, the origins of APLA Health as it's known today,
when we were originally founded forty one years ago, we
were known as AIDS Project Los Angeles, and this was
an organization essentially just set up by peers in the community.
So once HIV and AIDS started to become known, there
(05:56):
really was not a lot of information out there for
the general public. So AIDS Project Los Angeles was created
as a way to kind of gather and disseminate information
to community members that we're facing an epidemic and really
there weren't a lot of information or resources available to them.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
You know. I feel that it's important for us to
have this conversation, one because your walk is coming up
on October thirteenth, but also because I don't know about you,
but I don't feel as if we talk about HIV
and AIDS the way that we once did probably ten
twenty years ago, where it was a part of regular
(06:39):
conversation about preventative measures, about what are the effects and
what are the medications that folks are taking and how
to protect yourselves. Why do you think that that has
changed so much?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Well, I think it kind of dovetails into our theme
this year of we're not walking back, but also simultaneously
celebrating forty years of progress. You know, most people don't
realize if you're not of a certain age that for
the first fifteen years of this, if you became HIV positive,
(07:14):
that was essentially an automatic death sentence. There were no
drugs that were going to keep you alive. And so
until nineteen ninety six with the introduction of anti retroviral therapies,
this disease was essentially a death sentence. And APLA in
(07:36):
its origins, was really about disseminating information but also preparing
people for the inevitable realities of the disease. Right, And
so to your point, I think that we've made a
lot of progress against this disease over the course of
over forty years, and so it's not the automatic death
(08:00):
sentence that it used to be. In fact, it's a
very treatable and livable condition at this point. So for that,
we're extremely thankful and there's a lot of people that
did a lot of hard work convincing the federal government
that this was a serious problem, a problem to be
taken seriously. So in that regard, you know, things have
(08:22):
changed dramatically. That doesn't mean that HIV is not out there,
but it basically means that our tools that we have
in order to prevent people from getting HIV in the
first place and to get people in the medical treatment
if they do have the disease has dramatically shifted over
the course of greater than forty years.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
You know, there was a time, and I want to
say it was around the time when I was still
living in Washington, d C. I want to say that
it was probably the early twenty tens when there was
actually a spike in HIV and AIDS in the LGBTQ community,
but particularly for black queer men. And I want to
talk about, you know, ask you about the ways in
(09:07):
which what does education look like these days, particularly for
younger queer folks who don't have the memory, who don't
have the deep memory and understanding of the devastation that
was caused at the beginning of the crisis in the
eighties and the early nineties, that kind of think that
it's no big deal like, how do you work to
(09:30):
educate so that we don't have spikes that happen inside
of the community.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I think that that's a complex problem that deserves a
complex set of answers. Let's back up a second and
just talk about America's healthcare system that really has not
effectively served black and brown people. And so we're talking
about this system that has not worked particularly well, that
(09:59):
hasn't been particularly welcoming to LGBTQ plus people either. Right, So,
when we talk about the disease state today, unfortunately, because
of that medical reality, this disease is more of a
black and brown disease, and it's more of a disease
(10:19):
that is prevalent in places that have not expanded Medicaid.
During the introduction of Obamacare, and with Obamacare, Medicaid became
the vehicle to deliver health services to low income people,
regardless of if you were single or a male, or
it really expanded who was eligible for Medicaid services. And
(10:43):
in the states that have expanded Medicaid, you've really seen
a large uptake in these preventative measures to prevent people
from getting HIV medically that you haven't really seen in
non Medicaid expansion states which are predominant elite states that
are known as red states.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
And I think that that is and I appreciate that
because that is a very fair point to really underscore that.
I mean, we can talk about the beginning as well
in terms of the negligence by the Reagan administration, the
blatant negligence, right, and how racial discrimination and you know,
homophobia and transphobia have played a major role in terms
(11:26):
of weaponizing our healthcare system against black, brown, and queer
folks and those that live at the intersections. In terms
of younger people, Generation Z and what have you, what
does the education for that community look like versus older generations.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I think that the younger generations have an opportunity to
get into healthcare. That is what I would call culturally affirming, right.
You know, when I was a young man, the idea
of me having an LGBTQ plus medical professional that I
went to for council that understood the differences in my
(12:10):
lifestyle versus a heterosexual counterpart, for example, that really didn't exist. Yeah. Yeah,
And so I'm not saying that that's prevalent everywhere today,
But what I'm saying is we've come lie years ahead
of where we were. And so for me, particularly at
APLA Health, you know, ten years ago, we weren't a
(12:32):
healthcare organization, but with the introduction of Obamacare, we opened
up our first what's called a federally qualified health center,
and in fact, on October third, we're celebrating our ten
year anniversary of that first facility, and now later this fall,
we're opening up our eighth healthcare facility here in Los
(12:53):
Angeles County. So to go from zero to nineteen thousand
patients over the course of ten years, and the majority
of those patients are members of the LGBTQ plus community,
it just really demonstrates how far we've come in terms
of reaching this audience and trying to address their overall
health issues, HIV being obviously a major component of that,
(13:16):
but not certainly not all of that, you know, in
terms of talking about health, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And it's so true because I can I can remember
being very young, being on you know, for instance, being
on my college campus and needing to go to see
a medical professional, you know, and they're checking off all
of the list of questions that they ask and being
at that time it was you know, late nineties, early
(13:41):
two thousands, like being fearful of saying that I was queer,
right being you know, not wanting to be judged, not
wanting to you know, like I have always moved in
a way to brace myself for that moment when you
you know, to kind of prepare for the discrimination that
you could face and like what would you say and
how will you respond? But thinking that it is extraordinarily
(14:04):
important to provide young people with the skills, with the
information that they need so that if they don't have
somebody that is not affirming that they know how to respond,
that they can go in feeling competent and like resolute
in the care that they need.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know you still even see it today.
You know, certain people will go to mainstream institutions for
their medical care, but when it comes to their sexual
health care, they're still doing those at LGBTQ plus organizations.
So they've really kind of siloed their healthcare in areas
(14:44):
that are you know, reasonable for them.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
You know, what does it mean for you all? I
mean and you know, and congratulations on the on the
ten years and the amount of patients that you have
been able to see during that time. What does it mean,
you know, when you're talking to and can connecting with
these folks to have this kind of facility. Now you're
said you're moving into I think your eight through your
(15:07):
ninth that you're opening. What does it mean for folks
to have this kind of access? And you know, as
we're in the midst of an election season and cycle
where things could drastically change for the worse, how does
your organization brace itself for the navigating what could be
potentially a really precarious and dangerous political landscape.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
You know, I ironically, you know, this conversation is about AIDS,
WALK and HIV and AIDS really created a political movement
for the LGBTQ plus community, and we see the through
lines through that from health equity, marriage equality, to what's
happening right now in the political system. So, you know,
(15:54):
I don't think that this is anything new for the
LGBTQ plus community. I think what's new, particularly to some
of the younger people, is that just because necessarily we
advance our cause doesn't necessarily mean that there are people
working in opposition to that, and certain advances that we
have may be taken away. So I think that the
(16:16):
meta point is that you always have to remain politically active.
You always have to remain alert, you know. As a
part of my responsibilities for the organization, I oversee our
government affairs team, and we work at a local, state
and national level in order to affect positive governmental outcomes
(16:39):
and policies for people living with HIV as well as
LGBTQ plus people overall. You know, in the state of California,
as an example, you pay no out of pocket expenses
for PREP, which is the prophylactic use of HIV medication
to prevent you from getting HIV. That just didn't happen.
Many People Organization and other allied organizations put the pressure
(17:04):
to bear on the state of California in order to
ensure that that's a real thing. So Obamacare made PREP
you know, a part of the overall insurance package, but
it didn't prevent insurance companies from asking for copays, and
some of those copays were quite expensive, you know what
I mean. So even though you weren't paying the full
freight of the medication, you were still paying out of pocket.
(17:26):
And now in the state of California, essentially you do
not pay out of pocket for PREP. So these are
examples of you know, that's just one example of the
work that we're consistently doing in order to make sure
that people have access to these life saving medical therapies
in order to prevent people from becoming HIV and similarly
(17:47):
people who are HIV positive, preventing them from being able
to pass along the virus to others and remaining undetected.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
What do you think needs to be done in terms
terms of the larger you know, society, really kind of
understanding the needs of the community and what we should
be asking for from those that represent us in government.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
You know, I think that there's a lot of intersectionality here.
I don't think this just starts to stop for the
LGBTQ plus community. I think it's you know, I think
the black community has a lot of things to contribute
to this conversation, and I think it's important if we're
talking about HIV. I think everyone knows this is not
exclusively a gay disease, although it predominantly affects gay men,
(18:38):
But there's other people in this conversation. There's trans folks
that need to be really at the forefront of this conversation.
Black women need to be at the forefront of this conversation,
particularly in the eastern seaboards and cities and Red States.
So I think there's a broader conversation it needs to
takes place. I think there's an intersectional conversation that needs
(19:01):
to take place, And I think it fundamentally comes down
to what do we want to see as a society.
If one person is sick, are we all sick, you
know what I mean? Or are we just saying that
I'm good and You've got to fend for yourself. And unfortunately,
our healthcare system kind of veers towards the latter, and
I think we all need to work together to figure
(19:21):
out how we create a system that's more equitable for everyone.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I agree wholeheartedly. I think that that is incredibly important
for us not to operate in silos. Like different communities
have different needs and have been marginalized in different ways.
But at the end of the day, it is really
looking at having a robust and equitable healthcare system that
tends to all of our needs. With the time that
(19:46):
we have left, please tell us a bit more about
the AIDS walk, what people can expect, how they can
connect and get involved.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, absolutely so. As you said earlier, AIDS walk will
be happening on Sunday, October thirteen here in Los Angeles
at West Hollywood Park starting at ten am. You know,
AIDS Walk at Los Angeles is the first AIDS Walk
in the world, So there was no Aid's Walk before
the first one occurred in Los Angeles. The original one
(20:15):
took place on the Paramount Lot and it helped raise
money to just again do anything that we could to
figure out what was going on in our community. It's
really hard for people to understand that when this virus
first became publicly known, there just really was not a
(20:36):
lot of information out there, and that spanned for years,
and so there was a tremendous amount of fear, there
was a tremendous amount of unknowns, and a lot of
people were dying. So, you know, those first couple of
decades of this walk were really sad affairs, but also
(20:57):
the first instances of the community coming together, fundraising amongst
ourselves and really trying to create greater awareness. Now, forty
years later, this event still exists. HIV still exists, but
the difference is now is that we have a medical
means to end this disease right now. So if everyone
(21:18):
who was not HIV positive protected themselves using some of
these new advancements and tools that we have. And if
everyone who was HIV positive got to an undetectable level
using the medications that we have available, this virus really
would have nowhere to go. So when we come together
for AIDS WALK today, we come together to remember those
(21:39):
that we've lost. I mean, the gay community lost an
entire generation, right, I mean, and I don't think people
have really processed that. But you know, if you look
at gay men of a certain age, there is a
huge hole there that we cannot get back. And I
think for us celebrating forty years of progress is hey,
(22:03):
look things have changed dramatically, but we still have more
to go. We still have more to go to figure
out how do we resolve these equity situations in which
black and gay Latino men are still the majority of
people contracting this virus today, whereas for people who have insurance,
those numbers have gone down dramatically. So this is something
(22:26):
that we can solve, but it takes a greater community,
greater awareness, responsibility throughout the healthcare profession. It just takes
a lot of actors in order to make sure that
we kind of close the loop on all of this
and in this disease in our lifetime.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Craig, I can't thank you enough for the work that
you are doing with APLA Health and the work that
APLA Health has done in the community for the community
for decades. Really appreciate you coming on to OOKF and
one to help us from member give us context and
education about how far we've come, but also provide us
(23:05):
with an understanding of what needs to be done in
the future to eradicate the disease moving forward. Really appreciate
you and congratulations on the amazing anniversaries.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
And thank you guys for having me. And if anyone
wants to learn a little bit more about this, please
check out our documentary and title Commitment to Life, which
is streaming on Peacock and it really gives you a
nice concise understanding of where we were and where we
are today.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Thank you, Thank you for that. Appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Take care.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
That is it for me today, Dear friends on wokef
as always power to the people and to all the people. Power,
get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Host
Danielle Moodie
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