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My Dear Brothers and Sisters, Great waves of emotion are centered around HIV and AIDS in the United States. There is stigma, fear, loss, sadness, joy, pain, laughter, prolonged living, anxiety, more fear, judgment, hate, greed, and a gamut of additional emotions.
While talking to a friend of almost thirty years, he asked me if I was HIV positive. He explained to me that many men gained a lot of weight to hide their condition for fear of being found out and to stave off potential weight loss. I wrestled with his question because thus came to the surface an issue with which I struggled when I decided to publicly use my gifts as an artist to help halt the spread of HIV. Like many, I, too, fell into the category of judge. I did not judge others, after all I am compassionate and very cosmopolitan. I judged myself. I wrestled with helping for fear of being labeled a certain way. This is the worst kind of fear. I will help you brother and sister but I don't want to be you or get in the trench with you. I knew I had to come to grips with my own truth and be unstoppable if I was to move forward and put my beliefs on the line. I will give myself credit because I know that I am a good person though prone to many of the flaws that all human beings are susceptible. So, the days of beating my own back side are less and less. I am who I am and I like myself. My judge was the seeming insurmountable fear, disgust, loathing, and stigma that our society heaps upon homosexuality.
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Homosexuals are among us my friends and they are not going anywhere. Any blame, shame, fear, and judgment is not ours to put upon any human life. If HIV and AIDS had just been discovered and not linked to "gay" we would have found the will to eradicate this disease instead of letting it linger for thirty years. There are white, black, brown, Muslim, Catholic, Christian, members of Church of God and Christ, women, Jesus of Latter Day Saints, fat, skinny, Jewish, unkind, sweet, manly, and feminine homosexuals. If this offends your religious beliefs, I am sorry. But no human being has the right or the law on his/her side to judge. This is fundamental to most religions. Bible, to evangelize, is a powerful mission and requires humility. So I challenge you my beloved human family to do the following: Love yourselves and love your neighbors as you love yourselves. Hasn't it always come down to this?
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I took on HIV and AIDS because it touches the entire human family. It is affecting Black people at a disproportionate rate. New infection rates for Black women hover around 61% among women. This is a crisis. My daughters are not hard wired yet. They are smart but they are not twenty-five and will make mistakes. I don't want one of those young adult choices to wreak this kind of havoc by a disease that is preventable.
Not like this, my brothers and sisters. Not like this will we, as black Americans, fade from the face of the planet, not like this will we allow our 12% of the United States population to become 5% or 8%, not like this will we be silent and allow others to suffer because we are so damned comfortable and lofty, not like this will we turn around and wonder what happened to us in three, five, seven, or ten years. Not like this will we live and allow our compassion to wane out of fear, not like this will we use the Bible as a shield to exclude anyone from the love of Christ because we cannot live up to loving ourselves and then loving those affected by disease, poverty, hopelessness, mental incapacity, or mistakes. Not like this my brothers and sisters, not like this.
We should all get tested and we are obligated to disclose our status to those who could be affected.
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So, as to my friends inquiry. I lead a very sedentary life. I go to my office and I write little black dots on paper, I move to the piano and sit some more while working out passages (a bit more exertion here), I move back to my desk and edit video footage. I do this from 8AM until approximately 1AM every single day except when I have to work on somebody else's project. I take time for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and conversation with my wife and kids and I make and receive personal and business calls. But this is my routine. Added to this, is my insatiable love of food. Anything with olive oil, garlic, tomato, pasta, bread, cheese, cake, pie, ice-cream, and whatever else there is. I gained weight. I seem to go up and down. I am on a downward weight trend now. I am back on P90X and I'm looking good. Great legs, shoulders, biceps, triceps, and back. I carry the rest in the abdomen and neck. They are both in retreat. I am loving myself and I reach out to all of you in love and solidarity.
"i break the silence through music, how do you break it?"
Patrick Gandy
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I woke this morning still feeling the lingering effect of the cold that had me confined to my bed for the past week. This day is new, this moment is new. I am wanting to get back to work at my usual clip but I know that that pace will only slow my restorative progress. So little by little and I shall be 100% in no time.
During my illness, I had time to reflect on those who suffer from disease and other maladies and I thought about how painful it would be if my condition was chronic and incurable. The pain and hopelessness would be too much to bear. So, for our HIV and AIDS affected friends, neighbors, relatives, acquaintances, and all who suffer, let's use this day to be our best. Let's confer with our better angels and eliminate that which holds us back from our greatness, let's not run with the crowd but lay claim to our own ideas and desires no matter how difficult or long the journey. Let's look in the mirror, confess love, harness the energy of the beautiful restorative sun outside the window, and dig in.
I break the silence with music, how do you break it?
Patrick Gandy
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I break the silence with music, how do you break it?
I love music! I cannot remember a time when I was not curious about how to play it, compose it, arrange it, or how to conduct it. Having had the opportunity to work with many great artists, I still have the curiosity and the need to discover how to create and play music.
To this end, I have created multidisciplined productions for The Silence Is Broken HIV awareness campaign. Through the creative and performing arts and a sustained media campaign-music, dance, poetry, visual art, and design-we are uplifting the vibration of the world and lending an inspired and thoughtful hand to effect change. I believe that being creative opens the door to possibility and answers that can help us all become better selves and halt the spread of HIV.
At The Silence Is Broken we are demonstrating the healing effects of music and story and we invite all people to participate. Every idea is important. We hope that through our DVD’s, Blue Ray Discs, and our concert video downloads we will quicken the hearts and minds of every citizen to break the silence around HIV and AIDS. We also invite you to act by sharing our work with others in your networks.
Proceeds from the sale of our work goes to producing the twelve concerts in our series and giving away sales to community based organizations (CBOs) throughout the United States. With our concert series we are creating awareness about HIV, the silent and relentless killer, settling into communities of color at an unprecedented rate. We are educating, advocating testing, and we are giving away our money to strengthen CBO’s so that they have the resources necessary to continue carrying out their missions.
We began traveling the fifty states to interview executive directors from HIV/AIDS CBO’s to hear their stories and learn about how and why they do the work they do. We videotape our interviews and post them at www.thesilenceisbroken.com. Please watch for new interviews beginning March 22, 2010.
I break the silence through music, how do you break it?
Patrick
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Many people have asked me why am I speaking out about HIV and AIDS. From this moment forward, I don't want to see the promise of multiple generations of people eclipsed by this preventable disease. HIV forces me to take a look at my own humanity and the difficulty in living as a full and complete self no matter your station in life. Through my work with The Silence Is Broken, we are raising money to create awareness of this disease and we are raising money to give away to community based organizations throughout the United States that provide care and services to those affected.
Though HIV and AIDS affects all people on the planet, our focus is on bringing awareness to communities of color in the United States. Specifically, black women whose new infection rate in 2007 was at 64%.
Like other communities, African Americans face a number of risk factors that contribute to the high rates of HIV infection:
• Sexual risk factors
• Injection drug use
• Sexually transmitted diseases
• Lack of awareness of HIV Status
• Stigma
• Socioeconomic Issues.
Healing, eradicating, halting the spread, and curing HIV and AIDS intersect at health policy, public policy, poverty, race, stigma, civil rights, and human rights. I want to revel in the promise of the world. We cannot allow a new generation of people to become infected with this preventable disease.
Join us at www.thesilenceisbroken.com and help us break the silence.
Patrick
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