In this season of Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows, we travel back to a pivotal moment in the history of this country, and we trace how, decades before Covid-19, a virus tore through some of our most vulnerable communities while the wider world looked away. We go to a pediatr ...Show more
Mourning in America
Valerie Reyes-Jimenez called it “The Monster.” That’s how some people described HIV and AIDS in the 1980s. Valerie thinks as many as 75 people from her block on New York City’s Lower East Side died. They were succumbing to an illness that was not recognized as the same virus that ...Show more
If I Didn't Have HIV, I Wouldn't Have Met You
It’s the 1980s — Harlem, USA — and the 17th floor of the area’s struggling public hospital is filling up with infants and children who arrive and then never leave. Some spend their whole lives on the pediatric ward, celebrating birthdays, first steps and first words with the nurs ...Show more
'Women Don’t Get AIDS, They Just Die From It'
From the very earliest days of the epidemic, women got infected with HIV and died from AIDS — just like men. But from the earliest days, this undeniable fact was largely ignored — by the public, the government and even the medical establishment. The consequences of this blindspot ...Show more
Respectability Politics and the AIDS Crisis
By 1986, almost 40 percent of people diagnosed with AIDS in the United States were either Black or Latino. As the full contours of the crisis became apparent, a group of Black gay men began to organize in cities across the country, demanding attention and support for the people d ...Show more