John Hilgeman 0:00 Good morning. This is John Hilgeman welcoming you to Lambda Reports. This is a program by and for the lesbian and gay community in the St. Louis area. Two years ago, the first celebration of World AIDS Day was held on December the first. It was sponsored by the World Health Organization to bring attention to the problem of AIDS, and for that celebration all over the world, educational events and memorials were held. This year in St. Louis, there are going to be several World AIDS Day events, and our guests today, Steve Gibson and Charles Koehler, are going to tell us a little bit about the events that they are planning, and we'll also give you some information on some other events that are coming up in the area as well. Steve, maybe you can start first, because the event that you're sponsoring is the first event that's going to take place, and this is going to be on December the first itself, right, Steve Gibson 0:58 Right. I'm a student at St Louis University, and the organization I'm starting, the Rainbow Coalition, is sponsoring a World AIDS Day event on December 1. We'll be showing Common Threads, which is a documentary on the NAMES project Quilt, which focuses and highlights five individual stories panels from the Quilt. It'll be in the pious library, in the Knights Room of Pius library on World AIDS Day, December 1, at 1990, 1990 at 2pm in addition to showing Common Threads, we're going to have four panels from the NAMES project Quilt on display, as well as educational materials on the AIDS Quilt will be available. John Hilgeman 1:32 Okay, Let's see. Can you tell us a little bit more about exactly what's going to take place if somebody were to go there and see the movie? Steve Gibson 1:39 Basically, at two o'clock we're going to start the documentary, and I'm going to give a little welcoming speech and show the documentary, and then invite people to view the panels afterwards. We're not going to have a speaker. I feel that the documentary is a very moving documentary. It's an Academy Aa\ward winning documentary in 1989 for the best feature documentary, and it speaks for itself, pretty much so we're not going to have a speaker, and we're going to allow people to reflect on their own afterwards, and then be able to learn more about AIDS, the way it's spread and how it's not spread through the educational materials. John Hilgeman 2:12 Steve, this is the second year, I believe the St. Louis U. has had an event. There's also another event that's occurring December the 3rd, is that it? Steve Gibson 2:23 Right. Campus Ministry is going to be sponsoring an event on Monday, December 3 in Bush Memorial Center. The theme this year's national theme for World AIDS Day is Women and AIDS, and campus ministry is going to be having an ongoing video in Bush from 11:00 to 4:00, and they're going to have a panel discussion on Monday from 3:30 to 5:00 in the Boland room in Bush Memorial Center. And the speakers are going to be Dr. Donald Kennedy, Miss Sally Cree and Reverend Jean Harper. They're going to be speaking specifically on women and AIDS. John Hilgeman 2:53 Okay. And Charles, what events have you got planned? Charles Koehler 2:55 Okay, this would be for St Louis Community College at Forest Park. This grew out of an event or an effort of individuals on the Forest Park Campus and also as part of a district wide effort from the Flo Valley and Merameck Campus in farming, a district wide aids task force. So this would be the Forest Park's campus's response to that effort. We've decided to declare December 3 through 7, that's Monday through Friday of the first week of December, as AIDS Awareness Week for the Forest Park campus. It will be starting off with a live on-camera interview with students and staff, trying to find out to what degree, to what degree there is AIDS awareness on the Forest Park campus. One of the things that we the committee decided to do is to try to involve students as much as possible, the community, as much as possible, in as many different ways. So what we're doing is we're going to be using mass communication students to do the live on camera interviews, and this will be closed circuit telecast, if you will, to 10 different locations around campus. Some of the students in the interviewing classes will be doing the interviewing, and there'll be some nursing students involved throughout the week, et cetera. The next day, Tuesday, December 4, we'll be having a panel discussion entitled, Do You Have the Right to Demand Safe Sex? And this, like most all the events of this week are targeted to the college community that makes up the Forest Park Campus, and that is a good percentage of the population is black. A good percentage is, of course, heterosexual. So we'll be looking at the cultural response of how different different minorities respond to the whole concept of women, in this case, having the right to demand safe sex, or safer sex, as the case may be. And we said that they'll there'll be door prizes for that in which those are will be safer sex kits that will be made available through St Louis Effort For AIDS. And I might mention that St Louis CFA, along with the African American AIDS Task Force, are helping out on a number of these events on campus, but that event panel discussion will be from 11:00 until 1:00 that day, on Wednesday, we'll be having a spirituality in AIDS, which will be an interfaith sharing and interaction from 12:00 until 1:00, and then in the afternoon, we'll be taking a look at the impact that AIDS is having now and will have on an increased basis in the future, with youth today, and we're talking it'll be an open forum for perfes…, with professionals, for teens and parents and teachers, and that'll be from 03:00 until 05:00 on the campus. And then, as I mentioned before, the the black community is is a target group that the the that the committee has identified as as a group that we wanted to make sure was was reached by the activities of the week. On that day, we'll be having a teleconference. It'll be with nationally recognized experts, and the teleconference is entitled HIV Infection in the Black Community, the panel discussion, the teleconference, will be supplemented by a panel of St Louis experts, and particularly in the in the black community. And that'll be from 11:30 until 2:30 on Thursday, December 6, and then that evening will be a very special event entitled Reflections AIDS Awareness and the Arts. And here we'll be, we'll be reflecting on our including how the St Louis community has responded to the issue of AIDS through various various arts. And in particular, we'll be focusing on, in on the NAMES project Quilt, Quilt panels, there'll be approximately 10 panels that'll be displayed approximately 20 or more additional, or total of 20 or so panels will be shown, if not in the actual panel, then slides of it, and the main thing will be focusing on the story behind the panel. In other words, the persons that made the panel will tell the stories of the persons behind the panels as they are displayed. It'll be a very moving experience, accompanied by musical performances by local vocalists and musicians, short reading from an AIDS related play, and also a multi image presentation on AIDS. And then finally, we'll be wrapping up the week on Friday, December 7, from 12:00 until 2:00 with title, panel entitled Next Door Neighbors and how AIDS has had a definite impact on people right in our community, it'll include not only students, but also persons with AIDS. Once again, we're trying to look at the entire issue of AIDS from as many different viewpoints as possible, show that this is not just a black and white issue, not just a straight and gay issue, but it truly has an impact on everyone on a number of different levels. So I'm really pleased with with what we've come up with that, of course, will be supplemented with daily films from 11:30 until 1:30 and they'll be having information booths and everything. So it's pretty comprehensive for our first effort that week. We've got more information too. Anyway John Hilgeman 2:56 OK, what I'm kind of interested about another thing here too, because one of the problems with AIDS has been the connection of AIDS and homophobia. Sure, and Steve, I think we were talking about that a little earlier. I don't know if you'd want to reflect on some of the problems that you've seen on the campus of St Louis. U Steve Gibson 9:37 Well, there's been some people who are afraid that that by endorsing or cosponsoring World AIDS Day event, they may be supporting or condoning homosexual activity. And since St Louis University is a Catholic Jesuit university, there's a very thin line between respecting the diversity of all people and promoting or condoning homosexual activity with, which the Catholic Church says is immoral, and I'm afraid some people have misconstrued the idea of co sponsoring a World AIDS Day event, which purpose is to educate people to the realities of AIDS. People are misconstruing that as supporting or promoting homosexual activity. But that's been a minor problem, overwhelmingly so the campus has been very supportive and worked very hard to make certain that this event does take place. John Hilgeman 10:23 I'm wondering about homophobia on both campuses. I went to St Louis U some years ago, and of course, that time, there was no student gay group and Steve Gibson 10:30 Well, we're not officially recognized yet. The Rainbow Coalition is a group that's starting a support group for the lesbian, gay and bisexual community of St Louis University. We don't have official campus recognition, yet, hopefully as of December 2, we will, though, John Hilgeman 10:44 Okay, but whether, whether a group is official or not, it still is important that the people exist and, you know, doing some positive things, really, for the community. I hope so. Okay, what did? There's a there's a student group at Forest Park Community College Charles Koehler 11:03 Right Forest Park Gay and Lesbian Student Organization, which I happen to be sponsored for and the administration as a whole has been uniformly very supportive of the whole concept, uh, Student Activities group is as a whole has been supportive too. The response from the student population as a whole has been ranged everything from very supportive, to the majority of people just don't know about it and could care less, to some other responses have been active verbal response and the like, and also removing or defacing meeting notices. As a matter of fact, earlier today, we had our organization I uh, existence, if you will. Our organization is listed on this large wall, along with all the other organizations that exist on campus. And ours was, was defaced and holes poked through them and the like. But the response of the the administration to that was, was immediate and very, very supportive, and so they're aware of the issue. And the thing that we have to keep in mind is that that type of inappropriate response does exist out there. It's a small number of people that have that response. They can be dangerous like anyone else, and the potential threat is very real, but it is very positive that it's being responded to in a very positive way by the administration, just as other issues that may exist on the junior college district are being responded to very, very directly. John Hilgeman 12:59 And in fact, the junior college district has a policy of non discrimination for people on the basis of sexual orientation in addition to other exact categories, right? Charles Koehler 13:08 Exactly. And my response to one, and if something like this would come up in the future, is I look at it and would expect that they would respond in exactly the same way as they would handle a similar incident involving race or religion or whatever else. That's where I'm coming from, and I would expect they would, and so far, they have responded in that, that sort of manner. So it's, it's, it's been a learning experience for a number on a number of different levels. One, one thing I might throw in right, right off hand, which is a recent finding, since we're talking about the college's response to the whole issue of AIDS, is just a real recent finding by the American College Health Association. And this I find very, very disturbing. I think our listeners will too, is that, according to the American College Health Association, two out of every college age students tested positive to the AIDS virus, two out of every two, two out of every 100 college age students tested positive to the AIDS virus. That's a staggering number of people, staggering. And of course, this is, this is on a survey that was nationwide. So it doesn't necessarily mean that St Louis would have those exact statistics, but I think it's at least indicative of the scope of the problem. And it's very positive to see that institutionssuch as St Louis University and I understand Washington University and also the junior college district is taking a very positive approach to this whole issue. It and is starting to do something about it. Steve Gibson 15:02 I also wanted to add that Father Biondi, the president of St Louis University, has also recently, about a month ago, signed to, in fact, a non discrimination statement at St Louis University that includes gays and lesbians as a protected minority and faculty, staff and students. So I'm thrilled that father Biondi has seen it necessary to include gays and lesbians as a protected minority now at St Louis University. John Hilgeman 15:24 So that's a major step, major step, because it's a recognition that people who are gay and lesbian are human too, right? It's also significant, I think that you know, the colleges be addressing the issue, because one of the major problems leading to the spread of AIDS has been the lack of education and information on safer sex and safe sex practices, because, I mean, if people aren't aware of how to protect themselves and how to keep from transmitting the virus, then people can't be expected not to have sex. It's kind of unrealistic, because most people, at some point in their life, you know, are sexually active, and it's kind of unreasonable to expect people who are sexually active not to be sexually active. To just say that's the only way so it's important for colleges and universities to be addressing the issue, to just protecting the lives of their students. Charles Koehler 16:28 One, one viewpoint that I that I like, or argument that I like is even if some, some other educational institution, is not concerned about the well being of their students or has problems with their reaction of the community to to addressing this issue, they should be concerned strictly on a financial basis, humanitarian concerns entirely aside, because If you figure out how much it costs just for the care of a person with AIDS over the course of their their illness, you figure that that's if that's money that that is not going to the educational institution, it's money that is going for this care of this person. It also means another person that is unable to to take classes. If they're not able to be in taking classes, it also means many times other individuals that are not able to take classes because they're having to stay home to take care of these people. So you have this ripple effect that goes throughout the community, and you have basically, again, talking strictly on monetary, cold monetary terms, you have a tremendous waste of resources. You have a tremendous waste of potential student enrollment. So if for no other reason than just looking out for the welfare, the financial welfare of an institution, educational institution, and I must say that the Community College of St Louis is interested much more. But if any other institution is out there, be it educational, our business institution, or whatever, if they just look at the bottom line, the hard facts, the money and what they stand to lose by not doing something that, in and of itself, should cause them to sit up and take notice. John Hilgeman 18:27 And certainly that is a concern of the community college because of recent problems. But I know too that you know from the many people that I've known at the junior college, that there are many, you know, at Forest Park, anyway, there are many very dedicated teachers and students and so, you know, whatever the financial problems at this point that's right. Charles Koehler 18:49 And I, I'm just really pleased that this, this response, has taken place, and I might must say also that a lot of credit goes to the staff and the people in at St Louis Community College, and outside of the college, they're helping to bring about this week and make it happen. Because, because of the financial situation, we have a budget of virtually zip, nothing, and so we're having to do everything by the seat of our pants, and we're still pulling this off. So that again, I mentioned not only to say to the community colleges credit, but also to let other people out there know that you don't have to have a lot of money. You don't have to wait for funding to come in or whatever. You can pull out things like this, make them happen and and get the message out there that is needed to be gotten out there to people, so that they can get the basic information, so they can start changing behaviors, and so that they can be informed, make intelligent, informed decisions. John Hilgeman 19:51 And so that we can save the younger generation. Charles Koehler 19:53 Yes, so we can save lives. John Hilgeman 19:55 Save Lives. Charles Koehler 19:55 Yes. The bottom line, once you get past everything else, yeah. To save lives, and also in terms of taking a compassionate response to the persons that are infected right now, Steve Gibson 20:08 I'd offer that we all have an addition to an ethical and moral obligation to do what we can to stop AIDS, starting with basic educating ourselves as to how the virus is spread and how it's not spread. Who's at risk and who's not at risk? That it's no longer risk groups, but it's risk behavior that's important, and that after we educate ourselves, we need to educate others. We need to keep letting people know every time we hear somebody make a false statement about AIDS, we need to correct them. And then those of us who have the time, we can volunteer for AIDS service organizations. There are numerous aid service organizations in the St Louis area that need time. They need money. If you can write a check, write a check. If you can't volunteer to help as many hours a week as you can. And in addition to that, you can also take it to the streets. St Louis has a new chapter of Act Up, which is the AIDS coalition to unleash power, which is primarily made up of individuals who have found that they can't work in the mainstream AIDS service organizations, that they're not effective, that people aren't aware, despite as much education that's available, people aren't being educated, and they're raising their voices in anger to show the lack of funds, the lack of education, the fact that politicians aren't responding. John Hilgeman 21:17 What happened at City Hall, Steve? Steve Gibson 21:19 Today there was a demonstration for Act with Act Up at City Hall that we had about almost about a dozen protesters, and we had a silent demonstration where we carried a coffin, a made coffin, down Market Street to City Hall, and we leafleted, passed out leaflets stating Vince, Mayor, Schoemel's, lack of lack of an AIDS policy for the City of St Louis, and zero budgets for direct client services. And we carried this coffin down, down to City Hall and passed out leaflets, went into City Hall, dropped the left the coffin in the middle of the rotunda and left, and nobody did anything. Only in St Louis can you, can you take a coffin into the middle of City Hall and not call the security, not do anything? And this wasn't a cardboard coffin, no, it was. It was a cardboard coffin. It was made, but it had been made by two ACT UP members, and it was a full size one. It was a full size coffin. It was a full size coffin. And everything, flowers and everything, very nice display flowers. And we're protesting again. We're protesting Mayor Schoemel's lack of a lack of a policy for AIDS in the City of St Louis, there are over 440 people have died so far from AIDS in St Louis. And the mayor, and Mayor Schoemel still has, does not have a policy. He'll spend lots of money to make sure our our highways have lots of flowers and a very pretty in the spring, but he won't give any money to direct, direct client services to people with AIDS. John Hilgeman 22:44 That's a problem in the county too, right? So the whole area is ignoring the problem of AIDS. And although, you know, and although the numbers, in a sense, seem small compared to other deaths from other diseases, it's we're just being beginning to see the tip of the iceberg, because there's a lot of other people who have died from AIDS, who have not been reported as having died of AIDS, and there's a lot of other people who are infected and in very stages of the disease and will be dying in the next few years. And the opportunity to really address the problems early on and prevent the massive difficulties that occurred in a place like New York, for instance, the opportunity slipping away quickly. Charles Koehler 23:30 And again, once again, if the government is not interested in looking at the humanitarian side, and they can just look at the loss of funds that they serve. I mean, those are potential taxpayers there that will no longer be around. And those are, that's monies that are going for medical services, that that could be spent elsewhere. John Hilgeman 23:54 There are a couple other events that are coming up for World AIDS Day. One is taking place. It's being sponsored by a number of organizations, and this is going to take place at Christ Church Cathedral. It's going to be on December 1 itself, and it will be at 4:00 pm in the afternoon. It's a candlelight memorial involving a candlelight procession. And there'll be organizations with banners there. There'll be an ecumenical group, there'll be some choirs, and there'll be some other things occurring also that day. And the Art Museum is for the second year in a row, sponsoring A Day without Art, which kind of symbolizes the fact that so many artists have died of AIDS. And if AIDS had been around a few years ago, some of the great artists whose works we enjoy. And the Art Museum would not be there, and they're having a showing of common threads at 1:30 and 3:30 on December 1 at the Art Museum. So there's going to be a couple showing of Common Threads on that day. And and just kind of reflecting on the fact that, like with the Forest Park Community College, having the slides and panels and talking about the stories behind the Quilt, this is what what you're doing, St Louis, Steve and Charles, you're doing at Forest Park Community Charles Koehler 25:37 College. In Forest Park, we're taking a look at a local we're trying to make it as medium and as local as possible. Now, if we can throw in real quick a phone number for additional information for Forest Park activities, the person to call is Mary Hammer. Entry number is 644-9780, oh, that's 644-9780, John Hilgeman 25:58 Okay, and do you want to give us a number or some place that people can call. Or Steve Gibson 26:04 if they're calling about information about world aid, say they'd be free to call me. My number, 771-5673 771-5673, if they're interested in a campus ministry event, they need to call the Office of Campus Ministries at St Louis University, John Hilgeman 26:19 Okay. And they can find it in the phone book, I'm sure. And also, if people want more information about the service at Christ Church Cathedral, they can call Metro aids at 658-1159, that's 658-1159, well, once again, why don't you just, Steve, just tell us when the event is going to be and okay, Steve Gibson 26:42 at St Louis University, we're going to be showing common threads, stories from the quilt on World AIDS Day, which is Saturday, December 1, at 2pm in addition to the in addition to showing common threads, we're going to be showing four local panels from the names project and educational materials on AIDS will be available. And I'd also like to thank, in addition to the Rainbow Coalition, the Rainbow Coalition, the American Medical Student Association, the gay and lesbian Law Association, the School of Social Service, Women's Commission, and the Women's Studies program, all departments at St Louis University for CO sponsoring World AIDS Day at St Louis University. John Hilgeman 27:13 Steve and Charles, the events are occurring all during the week. Charles Koehler 27:15 All during the week, and one of the main events, and incidentally, all of the events at Forest Park Community College are free and open to the public. We encourage people in the community to attend these events. But one of the main ones would be on Thursday evening, December 6, from it starts at 07:00 pm. From 06:00 until 07:00, there'll be reception for the story behind the NAMES Project Quilt panels. It'll also have a multi image presentation, musical performances, etc. So the reception will be from 06:00 until 07:00, and at 07:00, the short performance pieces will begin. That will be in the main theater that's at the Mildred E. Bastion Center for Performing Arts. It's at the end of the campus. It's closest to the Arena. John Hilgeman 28:08 Okay, well, thanks again Steve Gibson and Charles Koehler for joining us today. And of course, Charles is one of the co hosts of Lambda Reports. We hope you can join us again next week for Lambda Reports. Transcribed by https://otter.ai