Episode 18: Left in the cold, Kept in the Dark

In the 1980s, America was sold a picture of recovery: morning light, trimmed lawns, rising confidence, and a country ready to feel good again.But recovery has a frame. And outside that frame, people were already being asked to survive what the official story refused to see.This episode of The Persistence looks at Reagan-era America, ACT UP, the community care networks, and the AIDS crisis as it moved from silence and stigma into public confrontation. From “personal responsibility” politics and the myth of deservingness, to the early framing of AIDS through stigma, to the rise of direct action and treatment activism, we trace how crisis becomes visible, what institutions do once they are forced to respond, and what people build when they are left to carry what the state will not.By the time something counted, it had already been sorted.And by the time response arrived, the work of surviving its absence had already been assigned.This episode traces the politics of personal responsibility, the stigmatizing early framing of AIDS, the rise of community care networks, and the direct action of ACT UP.🎧 Listen if you’re interested in:AIDS history · ACT UP · Reagan era · Morning in America · Personal responsibility politics · Welfare queen mythology · LGBTQ history · Gay Men’s Health Crisis · Patient Zero · And the Band Played On · AZT · FDA activism · Lesbian caregiving · Mutual aid · Political historyThis episode was written by and produced by Angélica Cordero, with a little help from ChatGPT.Our theme song is Don’t Kid Yourself Baby by Fold, used with their blessings. Podcast artwork for The Persistence features Mexican-American activist Jovita Idar and was created by Tamra Collins of Sunroot Studio.Resources For Fellow Wascally WabbitsBooksA People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn“I Hope We Leave More of a Record”: Radical Queer Care within and for the AIDS INFO BBS’s Caregivers Mailing List, Marika Cifor, Claire McDonald, (Feminist Media Histories 1 January 2023; 9 (1), 78–97 p.Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 by Sarah SchulmanPatient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic by Richard A. McKay"Silence From the Great Communicator: The Early Years of the AIDS Epidemic Under the Reagan Administration," by Jacqueline A. Ortiz, (Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal: 4 (2), 2023), 76-99 p.LinksAct Up Demonstrations on Wall Street, NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites ProjectAct Up Oral History Project“The AIDS Epidemic in the United States, 1981-early 1990s,” (Story of the CDC, The David J. Sencer CDC Museum, Smithsonian, Last reviewed 2024)HIV/AIDS, (History of Public Health at Harvard, Countway Library, Harvard University, 2018)“Larry Kramer, Playwright and Outspoken AIDS Activist, Dies at 84” by Daniel Lewis, (New York Times, May 27, 2020)“Lesbian AIDS Activism,” (We are Everywhere: Lesbians in the Archive, Yale University Library)“Women and the AIDS Crisis,” (We are Everywhere: Lesbians in the Archive, Yale University Library)Other1982 - 1992 News Clips On HIV/AI