HIV/AIDS Discrimination Quotes

Peter Jennings came to us and said to make a PSA, 'Let's Talk About AIDS.' But I was naive about how the virus is contracted - until Magic Johnson came out. I'd stereotyped it, thinking it was a gay disease, a white man's disease.

When the HIV/AIDS epidemic first appeared, a lot of the reaction was that it's not happening here. It doesn't exist. It's not on the continent of Africa. Then we moved into this other phase, in which it was kind of like, it's everywhere.

When AIDS first appeared, people didn't know what it was. You'll remember that it affected mostly young gay men - it was actually called GRID for a short period of time: Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Syndrome - and people thought it actually might be recreational drugs or other types of toxins.

It is my mission to ensure that HIV-positive children and children with AIDS are no longer overlooked and that they begin receiving the treatment and care they deserve.

Being part of the Queen story and knowing what Freddie Mercury went through before he died of AIDS has really shown me how far we've come in fighting this disease.

I am so honoured to be supporting the Elton John AIDS Foundation and their mission making London and our global cities AIDS-free.

The general population still thinks HIV is something that came in the 80s and went away, or that it only affects the gay population or intravenous drug users.

It will be impossible for us to eradicate HIV as long as any corner of the world is cut off from the education and services that we know helps stop the spread of this disease.

I'll hear people say every so often that having HIV must not be so bad - 'Just look at Magic and how well he's doing.'

I felt like calling attention to AIDS. I had the AIDS ribbon colored into my hair during the playoffs in '95.

In the 1980s we had the huge catastrophe of AIDS and you would walk down the street and see someone who was dying. It was horrendous.

AIDS is a very, very, very vicious disease, particularly in the black community.

Most recently my battle has been against AIDS and the discrimination surrounding it.

My mom's best friend growing up was diagnosed with AIDS, and he basically raised me when my mom was launching her business. Although I didn't understand at the time what HIV or AIDS was, I knew that's what he passed away from.

HIV AIDS is a disease with stigma. And we have learned with experience, not just with HIV AIDS but with other diseases, countries for many reasons are sometimes hesitant to admit they have a problem.

Let us give publicity to H.I.V./AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died because of H.I.V./AIDS, and people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary.

We must have safe places where people can discuss and be treated. Forty-four million people are already dead from AIDS. What logic is there in not discussing the word?

I have an AIDS ribbon tattooed on my arm.

HIV/AIDS is a very big problem in my country South Africa, so I hope to stand as an advocate for that.

When I started out, no one would talk to young people about HIV or AIDS. I looked around and radio looked like a powerful way to shape culture in a healthy way.

A lot of people in my world - in the acting world - have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.

We must encourage people to get educated, to get tested, to get involved in the fight against AIDS.

There exist thousands of Americans who have AIDS-defining diseases but are HIV negative.

When I first found out I had HIV, I had to find somebody who was living with it, who could help me understand my journey and what I was going to have to deal with day-to-day. I found out that a person named Elizabeth Frazier was living with AIDS at the time, and so I called her up, and she took a meeting with me.

I came of age during AIDS and the terror of that and the sadness and the death and the overwhelming despair.