Ashley Honc
The Signal
Fliers circulated around the University of Houston-Downtown campus portraying a photo of student Kristopher Sharp with an oversized ‘X’ crossed over him and the words “WANT AIDS?” and “DON’T SUPPORT THE Isaac and Kris HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA.”
If this wasn’t bad enough, continued on the backside were Sharp’s medical records, telephone number and home address.
I was shocked and saddened at such a personal attack. The flier was part of a smear campaign to discredit Sharp who is running for the vice president position for the university’s Student Government Association.
Social work major, SGA member and vice presidential candidate, Sharp seems very involved at school. Why would someone attack his sexual identity, instead of his ability? Why would someone publicize his illness as if it were a character flaw?
In this day and age, it feels like a setback when someone goes out of his or her way to discriminate or categorize a person’s sexual orientation. For example, people should know that there is a difference between being HIV positive and having AIDS. People should also know that HIV/AIDS is not exclusive to the LGBT community.
HIV is a retrovirus that causes AIDS by infecting helper T cells of the immune system. Not everyone who is HIV positive has or will develop AIDS.
In the early 1980s, a time when we had no education or information on AIDS, 13-year-old Ryan White was diagnosed with it. He contracted the virus through a blood transfusion and was expelled from public school because of people’s fear of the disease. Like Ryan, Kristopher Sharp is a victim of other people’s ignorance.
Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of ostracizing people with an illness or disability, we lent them our support? We, as human beings, accomplish much more when we treat each other equally and with respect, than we do with criticism.
Sharp is far from alone in his situation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documents that there are more than 1.1 million people living with HIV in the U.S. and more than 50,000 people are newly infected with it each year. Harris County documented more than 19,000 cases in 2011.
The smear campaign against Sharp is wrong on many levels. Not only did the person responsible try to play on people’s fears, ignorance and prejudices, he or she committed theft of personal property to do so. Before trying to ruin someone else’s reputation, he or she should look at his or her own character and moral conduct.
Every time it seems our civilization has made progress, discrimination out of ignorance always seems to raise its ugly head. Perhaps real progress is in people’s reactions when something like this occurs. In Ryan White’s time, Sharp would have been run out of school with such a disclosure.
It will be interesting to see how people at UHD react. Instead of ostracizing Sharp, people who wouldn’t have normally voted for him because of political indifference might find a cause in supporting his nomination because of the outrage they feel toward the smear campaign tactics.
Experience and ability are the qualities that should have been addressed, having been pushed aside in a personal attack on Sharp’s sexual identity and private illness.
Instead of firing back at whoever did this, Sharp has shown responsibility and leadership ability by wanting to use this experience to educate people versus retaliating with hateful messages of his own.
Anyone who shows that kind of moral fiber, ethics and character is a role model in my book. If I was a student at UHD, Kristopher Sharp would have my vote.
