There’s no doubt that Magic’s admission will energize the fight against AIDS and increase public awareness–particularly among black and Hispanic teenagers, whose rate of infection has been rising dramatically. But many longtime activists say they are saddened that it has taken someone of Johnson’s stature to drive home the message that AIDS can strike anyone. And the AIDS community is divided over Johnson’s next move. Some believe he should disclose exactly how he got the virus, to break down taboos about discussing sex. A few gay activists say that Johnson’s disavowal of homosexual activity put a barrier between gay people with AIDS and everyone else, reinforcing the stereotype that gays “brought it on themselves.” Others defend Johnson’s privacy. How he got AIDS doesn’t matter, they say; his most important job now is to push for education and research. “The main thing that raises awareness of HIV or AIDS is to know someone who has it,” says Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles. “Now everybody in America knows someone with HIV.”
Unlike many well-known people with AIDS, Johnson made his announcement while he was still strong and vigorous. “The celebrities who have been infected by the HIV virus have come forward only in the last stages, when they look very sickly,” says Bobby Smith, an office manager at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “What’s so heartening about Magic is that he said, ‘Yes, I have it and I will beat it’.” At the same time, Johnson’s decision to quit basketball was troublesome. “If he’d stay, he could send another message: that people with HIV can still be healthy and vital and productive even with the exertion of professional sports,” says Charles Franchino of ACT-UP, a radical group in New York.
Gay activists say they are bitter that heterosexuals with AIDS draw far more attention to the disease than homosexuals. “We’ve been sending this message in a very loud and clear way for 10 years now,” says David LaFontaine, lobbying director for the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights. “There’s a frustration that when it’s a straight person delivering the message, there’s more credibility.” The gay community does seem more receptive to Johnson than it has been to Kimberly Bergalis, the Florida woman who was infected with the virus by her bisexual dentist. They say Bergalis’s portrayal of herself as an “innocent victim” generated hysteria about AIDS, while Johnson has so far sidestepped the issue of blame. Instead, he has said that he will focus on prevention–a much more positive approach. “Whatever Magic says about his life, the message is what you do isn’t what matters, it’s the way you do it,” says the Rev. Carl Bean, founder and CEO of the Minority AIDS Project in Los Angeles. “Everybody is an innocent victim of AIDS. No one went looking for something that would sap them of life.”
Right now, public sentiment is overwhelmingly on Johnson’s side. But some AIDS activists worry that when he gets sicker, that support may fade. “It’s such a messy disease,” says playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer, who is HIV-positive. “I think he’ll turn into the same pariah that all the rest of us turn into when we become sick. When his body becomes skin and bones and pus and runny sores, there won’t be so many people running to embrace him.” Racism could also hurt as he gets sicker. “The most despised people with AIDS in this society are black males,” says Steven Feeback of the San Francisco-based National Task Force on AIDS Prevention. “Black men are feared as criminals, as drug addicts. You add the stigma of AIDS–a black man with AIDS is treated like garbage.”
That grim future seemed remote last week, as Johnson stood smiling in the spotlight. Even President Bush said that he was moved by Johnson’s plight and felt compelled to stress that he cared “very, very much” about AIDS. Democratic and Republican pollsters say sympathy for Johnson might make the public more receptive to activists’ charges that Bush and former president Ronald Reagan have avoided dealing with AIDS. Maybe Bush could use a little Magic, The President’s Commission on AIDS has been one member short since the death of Belinda Mason, who contracted the virus from a blood transfusion. Johnson would be a great choice for that team-if he’s willing to get into the game.
