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A review by pushingdessy
The Life and Death of Ryan White: AIDS and Inequality in America by Paul M. Renfro
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I received this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Paul M. Renfro traces the chronology of a boy born with hemophilia who contracted HIV through contaminated blood products when he was just 14, and subsequently became the poster boy of HIV/AIDS education.
I picked this book because, earlier this year, I read Richard A. McKay’s “Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic”. This was a pretty good complementary read, offering the flip side of the coin of the narratives that shaped the AIDS crisis in the 80s and beyond.
Renfro argues that, while Ryan’s story was important in challenging early misconceptions about the transmission of HIV, his image as a white, cis, straight, “wholesome” boy also served, on one hand, to establish a hierarchy among AIDS patients: “innocent victims” like Ryan, who contracted the virus “through no fault of his own” (with white children at the top of this pyramid), and “guilty spreaders”, ie, gay men and drug users who not only had their behaviour to thank for the disease, but were also responsible for passing it on to others - like Gaëtan Dugas, aka “Patient Zero”. On the other hand, Ryan’s fight to return to school, his outlook on his condition, which emphasized “normalcy”, and his advocacy for education also shaped a “national pedagogy” that placed responsibility on the individual rather than on systemic issues.
The author also examines the classist prejudices that were present in the national demonization of Kokomo, Ryan’s hometown, during the rise in “colorblind rhetoric” - again, centering the blame on the abhorrent attitudes and actions of a few white bigots and away from the systemic structures in place.
The book goes on to analyse the political climate during the Reagan and Bush administrations; how the narratives around Ryan’s activism shaped the emergency act that provided federal funding for AIDS patients; how his image was used both by opponents and supporters of the act even decades after his death; and the ways in which the act ultimately failed to provide relief for the communities most affected by AIDS.
Finally, as in McKay’s book, the political response to the AIDS epidemic was held up against that of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in how both health crisis continue to impact historically excluded communities disproportionally.
This was a very clear and comprehensive book; not being USAmerican, I knew nothing about Ryan White prior to this and I come away with plenty of knowledge and insight about this particular chapter of AIDS history.
My one critique is that the book had quite a bit of repetition in ways that seem to speak more of a lack of editing than to wanting to emphasize a point. Just to name two examples, the line “Ryan White became the most famous PWA in the United States (and perhaps the world)” was repeated almost verbatim, as was the enumeration of Ryan as a “young, white, straight, popular” PWA.
Other than that, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic.
Paul M. Renfro traces the chronology of a boy born with hemophilia who contracted HIV through contaminated blood products when he was just 14, and subsequently became the poster boy of HIV/AIDS education.
I picked this book because, earlier this year, I read Richard A. McKay’s “Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic”. This was a pretty good complementary read, offering the flip side of the coin of the narratives that shaped the AIDS crisis in the 80s and beyond.
Renfro argues that, while Ryan’s story was important in challenging early misconceptions about the transmission of HIV, his image as a white, cis, straight, “wholesome” boy also served, on one hand, to establish a hierarchy among AIDS patients: “innocent victims” like Ryan, who contracted the virus “through no fault of his own” (with white children at the top of this pyramid), and “guilty spreaders”, ie, gay men and drug users who not only had their behaviour to thank for the disease, but were also responsible for passing it on to others - like Gaëtan Dugas, aka “Patient Zero”. On the other hand, Ryan’s fight to return to school, his outlook on his condition, which emphasized “normalcy”, and his advocacy for education also shaped a “national pedagogy” that placed responsibility on the individual rather than on systemic issues.
The author also examines the classist prejudices that were present in the national demonization of Kokomo, Ryan’s hometown, during the rise in “colorblind rhetoric” - again, centering the blame on the abhorrent attitudes and actions of a few white bigots and away from the systemic structures in place.
The book goes on to analyse the political climate during the Reagan and Bush administrations; how the narratives around Ryan’s activism shaped the emergency act that provided federal funding for AIDS patients; how his image was used both by opponents and supporters of the act even decades after his death; and the ways in which the act ultimately failed to provide relief for the communities most affected by AIDS.
Finally, as in McKay’s book, the political response to the AIDS epidemic was held up against that of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in how both health crisis continue to impact historically excluded communities disproportionally.
This was a very clear and comprehensive book; not being USAmerican, I knew nothing about Ryan White prior to this and I come away with plenty of knowledge and insight about this particular chapter of AIDS history.
My one critique is that the book had quite a bit of repetition in ways that seem to speak more of a lack of editing than to wanting to emphasize a point. Just to name two examples, the line “Ryan White became the most famous PWA in the United States (and perhaps the world)” was repeated almost verbatim, as was the enumeration of Ryan as a “young, white, straight, popular” PWA.
Other than that, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic.