Gran Fury, All People with AIDS Are Innocent, 1988
So if I had AIDS and knew I was gonna die and set out to kill as many innocent people as I could, I’m still innocent? Is AIDS a get out of jail free card?
Judge: How do you plea?
My attorney: Not guilty by reason of AIDS.Your scenario, while entertainingly dramatic and outdated (there are several Law & Order episodes exactly like you’ve described your hypothetical desire to kill people, and I’m sure other procedurals have cashed in on this fear of the menacing AIDS serial killer) completely misses the context and purpose of this poster, which was quite obviously not meant to state that all people with AIDS are innocent of any wrongdoing ever. That would be ridiculous, and everyone knows that would be ridiculous.
The purpose was and is to combat the pervasive notion that there are two classes of people: those who deserve to be sick, because of their deviant activities (members of LGBT populations, IV drug users, sex workers, especially people of color) and innocent people (just like in your scenario!) in the “general population” who have been victimized by those deviants and perverts.
The reason this discussion was and is important is that this characterizing of people with AIDS as not innocent, but in fact deserving of “consequences” for their deviant behavior, led directly to the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the 1980s alone. Your humorously absurd scenario, meant to disparage activist messages that you don’t fully understand, is part of the reason these kinds of messages are necessary even today, so thank you for the opportunity to expand further on the issue.