The Documentary Endgame: AIDS In Black American

HIV and its eventual condition, AIDs, is a epidemic that has plagued America since its first discovered in 1983 by the doctors of UCLA. Its catastrophic impact and fast spread was bolstered by many attributes. The reception and incorrect host range led to misinformation that it only affected homosexual white men. The way society acted against disapproved notions allowed HIV to thrive as people kept things to themselves. The government was ineffective and unprepared to stop the virus while religion only made it worse by labeling it as God’s wrath. The documentary, “‘Endgame: AIDS in Black American”, shines light on all these issues and how it all negatively impacted African Americans.

The documentary is mostly about HIV and AIDs in the African

All newspaper articles credited the host of the virus as white homosexual males. While at that time, homosexual males were what the doctors had considered at first. Patient zero was a young white skinny male who had a shortness of breath. But, the newspaper chose to includrace. It generalized the problem to only pertain to white individuals which led to the apathetic response by people of color. In the documentary, African Americans were glad that the virus only pertained to whites as it would be their business and they could just disregard it. While in fact, the reports showed that of the first seven infected, the first five were white and the last two were black—Haitian and African respectively. Because African Americans thought they were immune to HIV, their knowledge of it was limited. But years later, when the host range was readjusted, the statistics hit like a storm. Half of the HIV patients were

My health psychology class also mentioned how there was a stigma about how HIV and AIDs was seen as a homosexual disease and how people in the 1980s thought that only homosexual men could contract the disease. This caused doctors and scientist to neglect the disease and not do any research on the disease, since homosexual were a small population back in the 1980s when the disease started spreading. It also reminds me about a time in High School when a HIV-positive homosexual men came to talk to us about the disease. He told us about his experience about HIV and how he had a life partner and that he had a normal life. He also discuss the active work he is doing and the types of treatments he had done. He also discussed with us how a homosexual man with HIV dealt with the criticism of those around