Where Is Your Rage? Remembering Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer, age 84, died today. I had instant flashbacks to the last pandemic and thought:

Kramer called people out for their inaction. Dr. Steven Joseph (photo on shelf was NYC Health Commissioner. Kramer criticized Dr. Joseph for inaction with the AIDS crisis and accused him of genocide.

• Someone once said of Kramer, “He can walk into a room, stay an hour, and by the time he left, he’d piss everybody off!”

• Dr. Tony Fauci once said of Kramer that “he changed the relationship between the health establishment and consumers.” In other words, he was an advocate for health care, in this case for people with AIDS.

• He was a founder the AIDS advocacy movement, ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. Around the time of the photos below, I recall standing with a group of advocates at the intersection of Goodman St. and Monroe Ave. While out of character, I lay down in the middle of the intersection in a demonstration for more government funding for AIDS research. As police sirens blared in the background, one of my patients lying next to me said, “Hey doc, get out of here. You’re no use to us in jail.” I left, but I felt like I had made a statement, even for a minute.

Thanks, Larry. Rest well. You did something for AIDS that, for many reasons, is missing during the COVID pandemic.

Where is your rage?