Karl Schmid speaks with Rita Rockett about AIDS Ward 5B and the early days of AIDS.
KARL
I have that survivor instinct. Welcome to Plus Talk on Plus Life where we’re all about turning positive into a plus. And my guest today is someone who certainly did that and a whole lot more, back when HIV/AIDS was a dead sentence. Rita Rocket joins me. Hi, Rita.
RITA
Hey! Hi, everyone!
KARL
Thank you, it’s so good to see you. Now, if you’ve seen the documentary “5B”, which is all about the AIDS ward at San Francisco General Hospital, you’ll know about Rita. Rita, when this all started back in 1984, I think it was, you were planning to sort of do a brunch for a very sick friend, weren’t you?
RITA
Yes. One of my very first friends with AIDS was Dennis Yount and he was at the AIDS ward and I would go and see him all the time. And every time I’d see him, I’d see somebody I knew. And it was only a matter of two or three visits when I realized, “Oh my God, I know everybody here.” And so, he didn’t wanna make a fuss so, I would leave his room and I’d go visit other people, and then I’d go back in his room. And so, I planned a party for Easter and I said, “Well, we’re gonna have a Easter party, not for you, for everybody here. And he knew that’s how I was and he died before Easter. And I felt like, “Oh my God, I told these people I’m gonna have this party, and now my friend died, and I was freaked out.” And I said, “I don’t care.” I said, “I’m having a party.”
KARL
I like when you say that, you know, you knew quite a few of these people, we should point out, you knew quite a few of these people ’cause you used to dance on a pool table with a lot of these people.
RITA
I knew them from the community, different places where I had done fundraisers. And back in the day before we had a lot of agencies, we used to have rent parties, where we would have auctions or people would bring stuff, and donate and sell to just to help raise money for an individual that was struggling with his rent, or I mean, so I was like doing all this stuff, anyway. And I knew all 9,000 million bartenders from all of these places. And so it, I mean, and I can remember, you know, people saying, “Oh Rita,” you know, “Come and visit me. Is your friend still here? Oh, pop in.” Or people would call me and say, “Are you coming up? I’m in room seven, you know.”
KARL
What about the person that said to you or, and maybe you had a number of people said this to you that, “They had a light case of AIDS.”
RITA
Oh, that’s what they told me when they didn’t want me to freak out about Dennis. “He’s got a slight case of AIDS,” and I’m like, that didn’t go over well. I’m like, “Okay, what’s that, like a slight case of cancer? What are you talking about? Don’t bull crap me.” Oh, I hit the roof when they told me that.
KARL
And that I’m guessing, was coming from the out of fear and also the stigma that existed around this, and still, I mean, the stigma still exists. But in a way, I assume that they were saying that to sort of, I don’t know, protect your feelings or hope that you would still come because you don’t need to be too scared, it’s only a light case.
RITA
Well, I think as my big brothers, as Dennis was my big brother, they were trying to protect me. But at the same time, everyone was diagnosed in very late stages at that point. There were no early stages of HIV. Dennis had TB, he had KS, he had pneumocystis. He had like everything, you know? And so, there was nothing they could do. Everything was experimental. The drugs were so heavy duty. And basically, it was comfort care that, because there,
KARL
Yeah, and well, and that’s, that’s what the documentary said. You know, one of the things about the great documentary, “5B” was you were sort of caring for people, rather than healing people.
RITA
Yes. Because you had to have hope. Hope’s all we had. And I said in my documentary, in the documentary and I said to people, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you make them feel.” And so, you can make someone feel okay. You can make someone feel less anxiety, less freaked out, less depressed, just by a hug or just by sitting there talking to them, not by saying, not by freaking out.
KARL
Yeah.
RITA
You know, because- people just-assumed that I had AIDS. Everybody just thought, “Well, Rita’s doing that because she has AIDS.” And I’m like,
KARL
Yeah. How did you deal with that kind of, you know, those sort of things lobbed at you when all you are doing is as you said, “bringing comfort to people”?
RITA
Well, I just thought people that assume things are usually not so smart, you know? And so, I can remember at my office, ’cause I had a day job, you know, and they would say, you know, “Rita, don’t use the phone. Don’t go in the break room. Don’t sit at anybody’s desk.” They would tell AIDS jokes and it was all very, very rude. And I remember thinking, “If I did have AIDS, I would be very hurt.” And so, I understood the discrimination because people treated me that way.
KARL
Yeah.
RITA
Even my own family. And so, I felt like, “Wait a minute.” And also, “Why do you assume that I have AIDS? Did I say on TV I had AIDS? Why do I have to be sick to care about these people? Why can’t I just be-“
KARL
Compassionate, caring person.
RITA
“they’re my brothers.” I mean, I went through some stuff where they took care of me. They would sleep on my couch to make sure I was safe. They always made sure nobody, you know, they always looked, I was the little sister. All of a sudden, it was the “changing of the guard”, and all of my big brothers were getting sick. And everybody was older than me, and it was almost like I had to grow up-
KARL
Yeah.
RITA
real fast in terms of, “Okay, these are my big brothers and this is what I have to do.”
KARL
Right.
RITA
But I’m the oldest of a large family. I have that survivor instinct.
KARL
So when you see that HIV stigma still exists in this day and age, 40 years later, after the, you know, we first started talking about it, almost 40 years since you doing the ward. And yet here we are, and people are still treating people very much the same way you were treated. Well, how does that make you feel?
RITA
Well, AIDS is not a gay disease, you know? That was my sound bite because people would try to in every interview, that was what I always said first because they’re probably gonna cut me off. So I’m gonna say, “AIDS is not a gay disease”, before they can cut me off. And when I was in People magazine, March of ’87, I was eight months pregnant. People magazine came to the ward to interview me on a Sunday. I was eight months pregnant, sitting on a bed with a person with AIDS, big as a house, you know? And that was a big, what do you call it? Double-page picture-
KARL
Yeah.
RITA
in People magazine. And I was not aware that middle America wasn’t ready for that. I did not understand the impact and the hate that that would generate, and the love that that would generate because that was a straight white female sitting there with a person with AIDS, being pregnant. And I got hate mail. I got death threats. I got lots of positive male, but it was like, “Whoa!”
KARL
It’s interesting I read an interview that you gave in, you know, where I guess a lot of people could say, especially people who were not HIV-positive at the time or dying of AIDS at the time, they could say, “Yeah, I was scared.” You said you were scared, but not because for the reasons we would think. You were scared that the patients were gonna tell you to go away. “We don’t want you here. Don’t bother us.” Right?
RITA
Yeah. And I, you know, I didn’t understand. And I thought, “Oh, what are they gonna say?” And, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was not like that at all. Everybody was so gracious and welcoming. And the staff, the nurses, the doctors, the administration, Cliff, Alison, everybody, they knew my intentions were just that.
KARL
That’s gonna do it for this episode of Plus Talk, where if you want more information or just want-
RITA
Thank you for remembering me.
KARL
Absolutely Rita. If you want to catch this again, check out our website pluslifemedia.com. And be sure to follow us across social media platforms. We are at Plus Life media.