Hello readers, followers, family, friends, and colleagues!

I would like to walk you through the most amazing day of my life, beginning with a visit to the Spencer Cox Center for Health. This amazing center (one of three in New York City) is an effective, efficient, and inspiring institution designed to provide the best health care possible in the most convenient and effective way to ANYONE who needs it. While specifically focused on treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS, this clinic takes the “one stop shop” approach, consolidating within it’s walls variety of treatment. For more information on the treatment available please visit their website at: centerforcare.org . Instead of going in depth into the available services and treatment (which could take up this entire post as they do it all) I would like to focus on some alarming information and data that you, as a human being, need to know.  According to the latest data (2012) there were 7,800 active patients, the Spencer Cox Center tracked 110,451 visits. Of these patients 54% men who have sex with men, 75% people of color, and 79% men. Further, 27% were heterosexual, 25% are white, and 20% are female.

Our next stop, shifting gears from activism to art, was the Museum of Modern Art.

 I was in heaven and felt at home among the priceless pieces ranging from abstract sculptures to cubist landscapes, pop art to impressionism. I have always dreamed of seeing the work of my favorite artists (all from the pop movement) Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and above all ANDY WARHOL. Oh the silk screen, “junk” art, numerals and flags! I am not too proud to admit that as I walk through the sterile white walls, surrounded by tourists and security guards, I was able to be alone with the art, encapsulated by the forms, colors, images, and the shear gravity of what I was experiencing, and a tear or two may have made their way down my cheek as I looked at “Orange Car Crash 15 Times” by Warhol. I lost track of time and skipped lunch wandering the exhibits in awe, I found myself in the sculpture garden after completing my adventure and digested what I had just experienced, and I found myself thinking critically of the place that had just encapsulated me. I wrote in my journal “I have accomplished a dream, but I can’t help but feel…disappointed, offended even, and annoyed by the blatant disregard, no the deliberate elimination of LGBTQ artists and representations in MoMA. My queer brothers and sisters reduced to a plaque about their technique, disregarding the integral role their identities played in the shaping of that technique, and more importantly their philosophies and art itself. Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg were lovers, this is a fact. But the plaque which bears both of their names talks about the influence of other movements, but speaks nothing of their sexuality though their work is not only influenced by queerness, it exudes it. Queer icon Andy Warhol was reduced to an artist of consumerism, but the fact that he had the epicenter of queer culture in the 1970’s is deleted, washed as white as the walls of the museum who sterilized his image to protect visitors from the truth. How many women had work in this space? I can name one. How many people of color? Only in the Mexican mural and surrealist exhibit could I find examples. The truth I have come to see is that the collection at MoMA is as white washed and sterile as those pristine eggshell walls, it makes me very sad. It does not take away from my experience, I was able to contextualize what I was seeing. I know the stories of these artists and it made the works that much sweeter, but it makes me hope that true depictions, histories, and descriptions will soon make their way into this exhibit to challenge the notions of privilege and comfortability, after all that is what art does, it challenges your perceptions. “Art is what you can get away with.” (Andy Warhol)

Andy Warhol
Orange Car Crash 15 Times

Switching back to the activist role on the train to “The Village” or the old gay district, we met again with the incomparable Jim Eigo of ACT UP to discuss the current state of the Pandemic and the steps that are being taken next (taking on the Center for Disease Control). We learned how to act up and fight for social justice effectively for the sake of change, not for the sake of yelling at someone. And we put this into action as we headed to Washington Park for a rally. I should preface by saying that 40% of homeless people under the age of 25 identify as LGBTQ, they leave because of abuse or they are kicked out. This is even more common among queer people of color. The youth sometimes turn to drugs, alcohol, prostitution, and theft simply to survive on the streets, to get a bed to sleep in and a roof over their head. This is a national tragedy and disgrace. We, as a wealthy nation must protect our nation’s youth. It seems tragic that this needs to be said, it should be common knowledge, but Everyone deserves a home. Everyone deserves to not go to bed hungry. Everyone deserves to have protection from oppression and the elements. The rally, as you might have guessed, was for homeless youth. this is not a gay issue, a youth issue, a black issue, a white issue, a class, ability, religious, liberal, right wing…….. issue it is a HUMAN issue. The rally was the first to kick of the movement for protections against homelessness effecting youth, The second is on Capital Hill on December 8th Demanding action is taken to help our fellow human beings

Protest signs from the rally

Finally, we attended an ACT UP meeting!!!!!!!!!!! A literal dream come true. We are all act up members who even were allowed to vote on a few measures and engaged in discussion throughout the meeting! These activists are truly amazing, they are going to the Center for Disease Control and demanding that changes be made in the outdated policies of treatment and prevention. 50,000 new infections in the United States occur every year, the CDC is slow to respond and when they do it is with apathetic measures which seem to carry the sentiment “We will figure it out.” Act up is…well…acting up to say the time is now to end this pandemic, the time is now to stop the infection rates, the time is now to protect our brothers and sisters from this preventable disease, the time is now to agitate, educate, and eradicate!

I am absolutely overwhelmed by the emotions I experienced today. I achieved multiple lifelong dreams and goals, I participated in direct action against homelessness amongst youth, I voted at an ACT UP meeting, I stared at real Warhols, Johns’, Rauschenbergs, and Kahlos. And I realized that an amazing museum has tried to silence my queer brothers and sisters. But we will not be silenced. No matter how marginalized, no matter how beaten down, now matter how bullied, and no matter how long it takes today has shown me that we will speak up, we will act up, and we will be heard.

Thank you all for reading, I know it was long, but it was quite a day.

In Solidarity,

Sam Walburn