The Death of a Beloved President: George H.W. Bush

Kupono Ling, Social Media Manager

The passing of anyone is a moment to pay attention to. The passing of a president should rate equally in your life, or should it? It’s normalized that we stop and pay respects to a person that dedicated their life to the betterment of our country.

It can be rough, especially in our current climate, to care about someone who is not politically similar to us. And right now, it feels like it’s difficult to even like people who don’t share your political views. But the question begs us: do people deserve the attention that we think we owe them?

With the recent death of George H.W, much of us decide to honor his death with his accomplishments throughout life, however there is a large part of the population who decide to let the decisions of his past haunt them. To elaborate, George H.W. Bush accomplished multiple things throughout his presidency, however his two most notable acts consisted of the liberation of Kuwait from Iraq, as well as passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (aka ADA). Two monumental feats during his presidency, however overlooked by many. Said acts are overlooked by what he did, or rather what he didn’t do, in terms of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. During his term, the AIDS virus had spread predominantly in the queer community, and was widely ignored by his own administration while not receiving the urgency as an issue that it had required.

Bush himself refused to even include the use of the word AIDS publicly in reference to the epidemic until 1987, while his (garbage) press secretary at the time Larry Speakes actively joked about the epidemic, saying “no I do not have it” when informed that one in every three people that have been diagnosed will die from said disease, and then continuing to ask the reporter if he had AIDS, and further badgering him about how he knew he didn’t.

For the president, the leader of our country, and his administration to show such distaste and horrid actions in the face of millions whose lives depend on the actions that they take, it’s absolutely disgusting that they would much rather ignore the problem, and make jokes about it than admit that there is an issue present, and that something needs to be done about it.

With the passing of George H.W. Bush (and hopefully his former administration soon), we have realized what we need as a country, and that is unity among ourselves. While we can credit him for leading the country, the words of Jonathan Van Ness truly take in in what way we should be viewing this situation; “remembering people and their actions clearly and accurately is important.”

It is our duty as a country to shed light on conflicts and issues that we hold, and to face them head on.