Standing in front of Barnum 008, Mike looks perfectly healthy. You would not know it to look at him, but Mike has significant nerve damage and a number of lesions in his brain. A few months ago, he walked with a cane because his equilibrium was unstable. If you saw Mike riding his bike with his seven-year-old daughter, you would never know that he had HIV.
Mike, who speaks anonymously so his daughter will not learn of his disease, spoke to students as part of AIDS awareness week, was intended to serve as a wake-up call to the audience and inform them that everyone is at risk of contacting HIV or AIDS. He warned students not to think of themselves as immune to AIDS because they come from affluent communities or because they go to a selective university.
"The worst thing you can think is that it can't happen to you," he said.
Mike said that even if you think you know your partner, you might still be at risk. There are many infected people who "sleep around and don't tell," he said, as well as people having unprotected sex who most likely have HIV but are either afraid or unwilling to be tested.
During his presentation, Mike spoke poignantly about his struggle to live with the virus and raise his seven year-old daughter, who is HIV-negative. Mike is a 30-year old Bostonian who works for the Boston Living Center, a facility for people infected with HIV/AIDS.
The speech was sponsored by the Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS) AIDS outreach group. Organizers Rebecca Grossman-Cohen and Tania Phocas said that it was important because students often think that HIV and AIDS do not affect them.
"Because Tufts is such an affluent university, there tends to be a general sentiment that HIV has nothing to do with [Tufts students]," Phocas said. "I know several college-age persons infected with HIV-and you don't need to engage in risky behavior all the time. Sometimes all it takes is one night."
Grossman-Cohen added that Mike was right in calling AIDS "a human disease". "It touches everybody. It doesn't discriminate," she said.
While he was quick to stress that money does not make one immune to HIV, Mike's personal path to the disease had more to do with difficult poverty than careless affluence. Born in a Worchester, Mass., housing project to an alcoholic mother and a verbally abusive father, Mike "grew up in the streets," and he is unsure whether unprotected sex or the sharing of needles was the source of his infection.
Mike became involved with drug dealers when he was thrown out of regular high school at age 17 and placed in an alternative high school for teenagers with behavioral problems. He recounted his experience with heroin, saying that, when he was high, he "felt like [he] could do anything."
Having "fallen in love" with drugs, Mike's lifestyle was one of addiction and risk-taking. He said that his illness is one that he brought upon himself through the decisions he made about his life. "It was always my choice... nobody gave this to me... the choices I made at 17, this is what comes of them," he said.
Despite a strong advertising effort, the auditorium was not packed with people, and Phocas said that she was a little disappointed with the low turnout. "I realize that many students have a lot of work right now, but I think the feeling that 'it could never happen to me' is a major contributing factor to their apathy. It's unfortunate," she said.
However, those who did attend said that they were moved by Mike's informative and personal message. Junior April Duddy said that Mike struck a chord because of his message that heterosexuals are just as susceptible to AIDS as homosexuals are. Often, AIDS outreach programs bring in speakers who are homosexual, and Duddy said that Mike was able to offer a "different point of view." Junior Barbara Szajda agreed that the speech was "overall, very powerful and moving."
Besides warning audience members, Mike also offered them advice on how to look for signs that a sexual experience may be risky. He said that if the person you are having sex with refuses to use a condom, chances are, he has not used a condom with anyone else he has had sex with, either. If the person you are involved with threatens to have sex with someone else if you will not have sex with him/her, chances are, he or she is already having sex with somebody else.
Mike also emphasized the important of AIDS education, but said that many high schools and middle schools seem unwilling to promote prevention. He said that many parents and teachers need AIDS education more than their students do, as his presentations to middle and high school students have not been met with enthusiasm by school administrators.
"[They think] if you don't talk about it, you're not going to get infected," he said.
LCS President Dan Landman echoed Mike's sentiments, and said that the goal of awareness week is to make the community cognizant of ways to prevent contraction of the virus. "HIV/AIDS is becoming such a common disease and it's so preventable. We have to prevent it at the beginning and start at an early age," he said.
Among the other activities that took place during AIDS awareness week were dorm discussions and demonstrations on how to use condoms, a Red Cross educational workshop, and a poetry reading at Oxfam Caf?©.
