"Even at church, people would not shake my hand." - Ryan White

Posted on: 08/14/2009 03:48

"Even at church, people would not shake my hand." ⁽¹⁾

Accessiblechurch.ca the web site I have created with the help of people here on Wondercafe is dedicate to Ryan White and all people living with illness or disability who have faced discrimination because of ignorance and fear.

Ryan was a boy living with haemophilia, he became infected with HIV from a contaminated blood treatment and was diagnosed at the age of 13 on December 17 1984. After being out of school for months, His mother asked if he could return, but was told by school officials that he could not.

On June 30 1985, a formal request to permit re-admittance to school was denied. White's school, faced enormous pressure from many parents and faculty to bar him from the school after his diagnosis became widely known. 117 parents (from a school of 360 total students) and 50 teachers signed a petition asking the school to ban White from school. The principal agreed, and when appealed to the school board they also agreed and continued to bar him from school..

Jeanne White, Ryan's mother said people on the street would often yell, "we know you're queer" at Ryan. Many threats followed, as well as demonstrations outside his home and school.

When a bullet was fired through the Whites' living room window, the family had to leave their home. His family moved to Cicero, Indiana, where White enrolled at Hamilton Heights High School. On August 31, 1987, a Ryan was greeted by school principal Tony Cook, school system superintendent Bob G. Carnal, and a handful of students who had been educated about AIDS and were unafraid to shake Ryan's hand. Ryan died on Palm Sunday, April 8, 1990. (2)

Gone too Soon, Michael Jacksons Tribute to Ryan.

1 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/ryanwhite300688.html
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White

See a video of him at Gone too Soon, Michael Jacksons Tribute to Ryan.

See a picture and his memorial atthe Accessiblechurch page at http://sites.google.com/site/accessiblechurch/ryan-white

Alex's blog

Comments

Alex

Posted on: 08/14/2009 04:02

WaterBuoy

Posted on: 08/14/2009 13:43

I was told by a person doing an electronic search that the bible states at least 366 times to have no fear. Is this a peculiarity that literalists overlook in misunderstanding old words? It seems we do not follow the guidlines too closely when it comes to loving the alien ... things that scare Christians? Does the devil chuckle at such conscious thoughts when we cannot even begin to understand our unconscious motivations ... intuitions? People think space is weird ... agorophobic isolationists! Dimensional offset, spatial thoughts?

Alex

Posted on: 08/14/2009 19:37

Good point. I also wanted to express to people what it was like to have AIDS in the eighties and to be rejected at church. People forget what going through something like that can have on ones own world view.

I can rememeber dealing with Doctors who were dressed in space suits. Robert my partner was the first person to be hospitalised at the hospital in Hull. We would laugh in our pain, and looked at the bright side, he always got a private room for free, and he did not have too deal with anyone from the pastoral care team pushing sanctonmonius crap on him like other terminally ill patients had too.

Even through I never meet Ryan White his story educated many, including nurses.

I also remember those who took a publ;ic stance and made a real change in our lives. People diss celebrities, but when they embraced Ryan publically it made a difference.

The week after Princess Diana was photographed touching a person with AIDS was the week the space suits came off the doctors who were treating Robert. This was years after it was know HIV was not spread causally, yet the doctors who knew were still afraid. It took people like Princess Diana to lead the way.

Alex

Posted on: 08/14/2009 23:50

Resources for Dealing with Long term AIDS Survivors and Community Devastation and Loss

WaterBuoy

Posted on: 08/15/2009 07:22

Consider the leper (the pure) in the biblical story ... or is that the leaper (jumper of the line of light, which J'sues drew in the san)with all the corruption of the aboriginal words by people like James ... slave-keeper in Africanus ... who'll do anything to gain control over peoples basic freedoms. Does anything change ... hopefully the whole thing when we cross over! This is the dimension of feudalism ... fight for everything because nothing is a given in elle ... grey-C!