An Institute for Hispanic Health Equity Collaboration Article: Daily Prompt: Red

Let’s keep red and the red ribbon alive in our thoughts and efforts

In the HIV/AIDS field, the color RED is of major significance. It is symbolically archetypal.

We have the Red Ribbon, which we do not see displayed as often anymore. As a matter of fact, a few weeks back, a news reporter on a major news segment acknowledged that she had no idea why the White House was displaying a Red Ribbon that day.  It was World AIDS Day.  I was a bit aghast. How could she not know?  Then I started thinking about how we do not see the red ribbon displayed that often anymore. Remember, when celebrities used to wear them to the Oscars?  No? It used to be that the red ribbon was worn to bring awareness on the red carpet.   Perhaps this year with the Dallas Buyer’s Club being nominated for an Oscar  we will see the “red carpet” sporting again a bit of the red ribbon.  As a society, we should not forget the significance of the red ribbon. We still have a ways to go before we reach the “End of AIDS.”  With the recent biomedical advances we have great hope. However, we should keep HIV and AIDS in our collective consciousness.  The display of the Red Ribbon is one way to maintain that awareness.

This barn should also serve to remind of us how much more work we have to do in the HIV/AIDS field. In order to reach this goal of the End of AIDS, we must recognize that many places impacted by HIV/AIDS are at times disconnected from healthcare access points due to being in rural areas.  Red, the color of barns, should serve as a reminder that rural areas also need resources.

Let’s keep red and the red ribbon alive in our thoughts  and efforts.

Post and Photography By: Miriam Vega
Follow @miriamyvega

50 Shades of Red

It’s basically a guttural reaction… When asked to think of “RED” my whole body, mind and spirit goes to just one place, HIV and the AIDS awareness ribbon. Entwined in the shape of that ribbon are lovers, friends, and years upon years of activism.  Through these years, I have lived and been told stories that would probably fill a few volumes of a series that I would title “50 Shades of Red”. As a sexual health counselor it has been part of my job to keep a cool face when most people’s faces would turn red! You get exposed to a plethora of interesting, alluring, chaotic and frankly sometimes bizarre stories and it is imperative to manage your body language in order to (no pun intended) not “turn off” the client. I have to admit that there have been more than a few times where I have secretly made mental notes to myself  when I get presented with a new “sex trick” I’ve never heard before. Some of my mental notes go something like this “Ok… I definitely have try that out soon!”  Sadly, more often than not when individuals, who are being responsible and getting tested for HIV,  share their sexual stories with me, they are filled with shame. They often express verbally and through their body language a guilty sense of having being “caught red handed” by society.   Perhaps we should all learn how to keep a cool face when it relates to sex and sexual behaviors. Not doing so is counter productive in the battle against HIV/AIDS! At the end of the day we all have our own stories to tell and we would like to not be judged by them.

Photography and Post By: Gustavo Adolfo
Follow @gadolfo1983
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Some of today’s posts from other bloggers:

1. The Cell Phone at Crystal Lake (short fiction) | The Jittery Goat
2. Red Christmas | muffinscout
3. Ignored | Perspectives on life, universe and everything
4. Song of the fallen | Perspectives on life, universe and everything
5. An Angel’s envy | Perspectives on life, universe and everything
6. DP Daily Prompt: Isn’t Your Face Red | Sabethville
7. Daily Prompt: Isn’t Your Face Red | Incidents of a Dysfunctional Spraffer
8. London Skyline | Travel with Intent
9. Meeting the requirements. | Greg Urbano
10. Good-Bye Mr. Olsen | Under the Monkey Tree
11. Red | The Land Slide Photography
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30. Superembarrasing! | Edward Hotspur
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32. Isn’t Your Face Red? | Lisa’s Kansa Muse
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