Magic Johnson & AIDS

The artifact to be analyzed is Magic Johnson, the basketball player and businessman. The meaning of this artifact has changed several times in recent years, with the biggest change coming in the shift from basketball hero to basketball-hero-with-AIDS. Indeed, the artifact is now as closely identified with the AIDS problem as with basketball. Magic Johnson was well-established prior to that time as a basketball hero in Los Angeles, one of the major players in the game, and he was in fact still part of the game when he made his announcement concerning his HIV status. This announcement had a major impact on the consciousness of the public for several reasons, showing how important the artifact is in our culture. Johnson stated that he was HIV positive and that he would retire from basketball as a result. The revelation was a shock to the public. First, Magic Johnson was a well-known and well-loved sports figure whose illness would create sympathy no matter what that illness was. Second, the mere fact that a sports figure, expected to be the picture of health, would contract such a disease was a shock. Third, the fact that the disease was AIDS and was fatal was a further shock. Those who commented on the issue all noted a further and very important reason for public consternation: AIDS is a disease that happens to "bad" people and that can never happen to someone well known, wealthy, healthy, and essentially "one of us." The infection of Magic Johnson challenged these

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ld have been lighted by George Bush. The general tone of the article seems to make the writer of it a liberal, though it is not clear that support for better efforts to halt the spread of AIDS is really an exclusively liberal position. The writer concludes that the conservative belief that answering teenagers questions about sex might appear to condone teenage sex is shortsighted, and he or she praises Magic Johnson for bringing the issue into the public consciousness ("Magic Johnson, as President," 1991, A12). Richard Rodriguez challenges America, noting that the people have ignored the AIDS problem until a celebrity like Magic Johnson brings the issue home in a dramatic way. He says he knows many men with AIDS who also show dignity and value, but they have been ignored while a celebrity is not. He cites evidence from those who have the disease and who have died from the disease that it has been a problem for some time and that it has been increasing as a concern, but he further notes that the public at large has continued to think of AIDS as a disease happening to someone else until Magic Johnson showed that this was not the case. The tone is regret and even anger that so many have died while the public, the politicians, a

Category: People - M