HIVmuppet

      Sesame Street has created a controversy once again. News on the television last night spoke of a new Muppet, a little girl who happens to have HIV. I heard today that she was also an orphan, The plight of so any children in Africa today whose parents have died due to the epidemic of AIDS. The children on Sesame Street who interact with the Muppets and the Muppets themselves mirror the children who watch the show. Children of every race and heritage play parts on the show and the Muppets although they are blue and bright red and yellow in color sporting feathers and fur share emotional bonds with the children who enjoy the program. It's called diversity and it teaches children that they are part of the big picture and that others though sometimes looking different on the outside and having different cultural backgrounds are the same inside and it teaches tollerance and self awareness. In Africa the percentage of children living with HIV has grown to staggering proportions, therefor what we would like to see as a segment of the world population that is somehow seperate from our wholesom population that enjoy the ignorant bliss of life as usual here in small town America...is actually the norm all things considered if the norm is the largest portion of any populations or the majority so to speak.
     Personally taking a look at the changes that have taken place in our lifetime...I would not be opposed to seeing this little girl Muppet in America, but I am glad at least that she will exist in Africa where there are one in nine children with HIV.
     HIV isn't about sexual sicko's and drug abusers, and some of the things I have heard on the subject of this Muppet from conservative dipshits makes me sick...I actually made the mistake of thinking just because I had come to an understanding that the issue of HIV was everyone's problem not just gay men and I V drug users...silly me I thought others were aware too. I even heard an idiot on TV alst night say that he hoped that Muppet never came to America because we need to protect our children from the whole issue otherwise they will lose their childhoods. Wrong! We need to protect our children from the virus itself not from the knowledge of it's existence or from the human beings who have contracted the virus that live among us, men and women who are heterosexual or homosexual and children...in every country in the world. Now that I think about it again I get really angry because those people who are living with HIV and AIDS right here in America not only have to deal with the fact that they have this disease that will eventually kill them due to some opportunistic infection and the side effects of the gererally experimental drugs used to treat HIV they also have to deal with stupidity which is from what I have witnessed through friends and loved ones I have known with HIV the most painful part of the disease...living in secret making sure no one outside of the family knows they are sick so they can try to avoid being seen and treated like a monster and seeing the fear in the eys of their community, that has too often in our recent past led to hatred, discrimination and even murder in it's worst form.
     Maybe they aught to bring the damn muppet to America if for no other reason than to give the next generation of kids the opportunity not to turn out as hurtful and closed minded as some of their parents are. I feel sorry for the closed minded conservatives that still believe they can simply close their eyes as well and refuse to see that HIV is not going away no matter how much we all, liberal or conservative want it to.
     We are losing so many wonderful and amazing people to HIV. Those closed minded people who still believe it doesn't directly effect them are not going to have the opportunity to know those people who are living with HIV and they are going to lose something in the process. I have known several people with HIV and full blown AIDS, knew them, enjoyed their frinedhsips and love them still with all my heart even though their physical presence is gone from my life now. The one majoe lesson that they taught me, on consistent theme of higher understanding of the true meaning of life that each of them gave to me is life is too short to hate and you need to learn to love the unlovable (in one friends' own words)...don't live in fear, you'll miss something beautiful and a life lived without taking the opportunity to love and be loved is not worth living. My life would be so much less if I had not known those dear friends who happened to have HIV. Maybe I would still be living the denial that appears to give so much false security to people like that man on TV last night...but I am so greatful to have known them and to have learned about life and love with them.
     These are lessons children are so much better at learning than we adults and something that I don't think could be inappropriate for Sesame Street to teach our children.
     The numbers of people living with HIV (better drugs-they are living longer and remaining contributing members of society longer before they become seriously ill and are unable to go out and work and play and be a part of life) as well as the number of people who are contracting the virus are still growing in some areas of the world and the number of new HIV patients in our country isn't exactly going down. As long as one teenager mistakenly believes love or the pill are going to protect them and that pregnant is the worst thing they can get from unprotected sex because their parents were too uncomfortable with the idea of teaching them from an early age that HIV exists is one too many. I'm not suggesting attempting to share with a preschooler all the methods of transmission, at that age it is enough to build an understanding that HIV is a part of life (because it is even if we don't want it to be) and people with HIV are still people who need all the same things any other person needs.      The part of HIV education that deals with transmission comes later, when they are older.
When is a good time for information about methods of transmisions of HIV ...seems pretty simple to me...how about during the time in life when parents should be educating their children about sex and drugs. Unless of course it's also too much to hope for that, that they are going to be able to sit down and discuss those issues with their children too, and we wonder why our children are out of control.
     People need to be taught life skills...and survival skills and self preservation that comes from self awareness and a sense of self worth...and perhaps too loving skills that include compasion and tollerance.

Why create a Muppet with HIV?