#Ronald Brazee

[indizombie]

The radical Catholic priest, Daniel Berrigan, after traveling to North Vietnam with a peace delegation during the war, visited the hospital room of Ronald Brazee. Brazee was a high school student who had drenched himself with kerosene and immolated himself outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Syracuse, New York to protest the war. “He was still living a month later,” Berrigan writes. “I was able to gain access to him. I smelled the odor of burning flesh and I understood anew what I had seen in North Vietnam. The boy was dying in torment, his body like a great piece of meat cast upon a grill. He died shortly thereafter. I felt that my senses had been invaded in a new way. I had understood the power of death in the modern world. I knew I must speak and act against death because this boy’s death was being multiplied a thousandfold in the Land of Burning Children. So I went to Catonsville because I had gone to Hanoi.” In Catonsville, Maryland Berrigan and eight other activists, known as the Catonsville Nine, broke into a draft board on May 17, 1968. They took 378 draft files and burned them with homemade napalm in the parking lot. Berrigan was sentenced to three years in a federal prison.

Chris Hedges, ‘Aaron Bushnell’s Divine Violence’

[hyumjim]

And I just want to share my immense disgust for this person specifically. How callous cruel and empty can a person be. The little nod to “oh but of course suicide isn’t funny except in this particular situation”—a politically motivated suicide. So fucking ignorant. Look up the history of self immolation, even just within the United States. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, 10 Americans self-immolated in protest of the Vietnam War. In order, these were Alice Herz, Hiroko Hayasaki, Norman Morrison, Roger Allen LaPorte, Celene Jankowski, Florence Beaumont, Erik Thoen, Ronald Brazee, Robert Rex Vice, and George Winne Jr. Is that funny? Is that a joke? Were they all mentally ill? How about the monks in Vietnam? Over 100 self-immolations occurred during that period all told.

And yes there was “another one.” A woman set herself on fire on 12/1/2023 in front of the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta. The reason you haven’t heard of this is because she didn’t livestream it like Aaron Bushnell did, and the suppression of information about her has been extreme. We don’t even know her name or anything else about her. That’s because self-immolation is a powerful political statement whether you like it or not, and if it’s possible for the media to suppress it and divert attention then they will do that. The only reason we know Aaron Bushnell’s name is because he filmed himself saying it.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Yesterday an active-duty Air Force soldier named Aaron Bushnell self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy. His last words were “Free Palestine.” Of the cops responding to the scene, some pointed guns at him while others sought to extinguish the flames; the image of a cop pointing a gun at a man on fire is the most American thing I have ever seen.

On June 11th, 1963, a Buddhist monk named Thích Quảng Đức set himself on fire in Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon). In South Vietnam, Buddhists were an oppressed majority, ruled by a Catholic minority—the Buddhist flag was banned, Catholics were chosen for all the better jobs, and protesting Buddhists were being murdered in the streets or sent to concentration camps.

So Thích set himself on fire and calmly burned in front of hundreds of spectators on a public street. There’s a film of it, and I’m not big into “watch people die on film,” but some moments in history are worth seeing. He didn’t cry out; he just sat in lotus position, engulfed in flames. Afterwards, the cops tried to take his remains, but thousands of angry protestors took him back, and they re-cremated him for a proper funeral. His heart didn’t burn. It solidified in the fire. Today it is today a sacred relic. I have no explanation for this.

Other monks in Vietnam followed his example. By the end of the year, the CIA led a coup and toppled the Catholic dictator of the country. This isn’t “the US being good,” mind you, they’d been propping the asshole up in the first place. Thích’s sacrifice is often credited as what brought down that regime.

Two years later, the first American set herself on fire in protest of the Vietnam war. Alice Herz was a German Jew, 82 years old. She’d seen some shit. She’d fought for feminism in 1910s Germany, helped bring about the Weimar Republic, fled Germany to France only to end up in a Nazi concentration camp. Survived. Made it to the US. Lived in Detroit and became a Unitarian. Then one day she wrote a letter about how horrible the Vietnam war was, went out to the street, and set herself on fire. She wasn’t the last. In South Vietnam and the US alike, Buddhists and Quakers and Catholics set themselves on fire in service of the same cause.

When a 16 year old Catholic named Ronald Brazee set himself on fire in October 1967, a Catholic Worker named Father Daniel Berrigan wrote a poem for him called “In the Land of Burning Children”

He was still living a month later I was able to gain access to him I smelled the odor Of burning flesh And I understood anew What I had seen in North Vietnam I felt that my senses Had been invaded in a new way I now understood the power of death in the modern world I knew I must speak and act against death because this boy’s death was being multiplied a thousandfold

The Dutch resistance to the Nazi Occupation was characterized by a unique nonviolence, focusing primarily on hiding Jewish people and acts of sabotage. This wasn’t necessarily an ethical or even strategic decision, but one forced onto them by circumstance—according to one resistance fighter, since the Dutch government maintained a firearms registry before the invasion, the Nazis were able to acquire that list and go door-to-door to disarm the Dutch population.

But what the Dutch resistance lacked in firearms it made up for in mass participation. Roughly a million people were involved in sheltering people, secreting people away, striking, or helping those who were doing such things. The two most active groups were churches and communist organizations.

The Nazis responded with collective punishment. The occupiers cut off food supplies inside the Netherlands, blockading the roads between farms and cities. The entire population of the country went hungry during what’s called the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945. Between 18-22,000 people starved to death. Four-and-a-half million people were living off of something like 600 calories a day each. A whole generation of children born or living at the time suffered lifelong ailments. Audrey Hepburn grew up in Occupied Netherlands (and as a preteen performed ballet to raise money to support the resistance). Her time in the hunger winter left her with lifelong ailments like anemia.

In case the parallel I’m drawing is not obvious, Gaza is currently being starved by the Israeli government.

Quite notably, quite worth understanding in the modern context, the Hunger Winter persisted despite relief efforts until the Allied forces liberated the Netherlands from the fascists in May 1945.

Aaron Bushnell was twenty-five years old when he died. He sent a message to media outlets before his act: “Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

He posted on Facebook: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

His last words, engulfed in flames, were “Free Palestine.”

I know that what stopped US involvement in Vietnam was the military victory of the Vietnamese people against US forces, combined with the direct action action efforts of the American Left that made the war harder to execute. I know what ended the Nazi occupation was the Allied invasion. I know what stopped legal chattel slavery in the US was the deadliest war in our country’s history. I also know that what stopped Jim Crow was… nothing. Nothing has stopped it, not completely. The long, hard, thankless work of a combination of reform and direct action has mitigated its effects somewhat.

I can’t say I think others should follow Aaron’s example. I doubt he wanted anyone to. An act like this needs attention, not imitation. What we can follow is the moral courage. What we need to decide for ourselves is how to act, not whether or not to act. I don’t have any answers for me, and I don’t have any answers for you.

I can say that he shouldn’t be forgotten, that he ought to be remembered when we ask ourselves if we have the courage to act.

I can also say that it takes an incredible number of people doing an incredible variety of work to effect change. That poet, Father Daniel Berrigan, did a lot more than write poetry. He and others in the broader Catholic Left raided draft offices and burned records, directly impacting the US’s ability to send young men off to die in an imperialist war. A group of people who came out of their movement (but were primarily Jewish and/or secular) raided an FBI office and uncovered the spying and disruption that was done of the peace movement under the name COINTELPRO.

A vibrant and militant counterculture sprang up, drawing Americans away from the clutches of conservative propaganda. They built nationwide networks of mutual aid and they helped draft dodgers escape the country.

An awful lot of American soldiers in Vietnam directly defected, enough that “fragging” entered the English language as a verb for throwing a grenade at your commanding officer.

As for the Hunger Winter, it was not ended until the Nazi party was ended through force of arms, but its worst effects were alleviated by the bravery and thankless work of uncountable people who cobbled together meals from nothing or who organized to bring food aid in across German lines.

In the US now we’re seeing a growing movement opposed to our country’s collaboration with the genocidal regime in Israel.

It’s impossible to know if it will be enough. When you pile straw onto the proverbial camel, you never know which straw will be the last. We just keep piling.

And in the meantime, we remember names like Aaron Bushnell, Ronald Brazee, Alice Herz, and Thích Quảng Đức.

[patemi-pk]

Secrets from the Past

Lyo was rummaging through the bolts and allen screws. He could not find the bar of filling material for welding. Yet he remembered getting a new pack last month in Mouseton.

Ah, now he remembered! Thursday there was that problem with Duck Avenger's shield, the flap was blown, the magnetic repeller of that electronite, or whatever it was called.

He tried to reattach it, but that darn metal did not want to melt, he had used up all the reserves of filler, without doing anything, while the masked duck muttered about what someOne could have done.

- Sgrunf! Another eighty dollars down the drain, sometimes I'd like to kick that latex youngster on the quilt...

Well, it means that his was destiny was to take another stroll along the Mouse River.

He picked up the receiver and dialed the number of his trusted second-hand dealer, the old Patrick Rosemore, with whom he had shared the sweat and dust at the time of Operation Torch, under General Eisenhower.

Upon returning home, in 1945, Pat had found work and love in nearby Mouseton and, when Lyo took over his father's workshop, he had made him his trusted supplier.

-Hey Pat, how are you old buddy?

-Oh, Lyonard, all right here, apart from the usual arthritis, how's it going near the Tulebug?

-Do not talk to me about it... Here the humidity will cause me to get pneumonia sooner or later...

-But did you consider the offer of that friend of yours, what was the name, Ronald?

-Donald...

-Yes, come on, think about it, Century is no longer for you, we have too many years on our shoulders, that place will collapse on your head.

-Damn, Pat, don't bring me bad luck, I'm just fine here, I don't need anyone else's charity, and then he doesn't even have room to breathe... with those three nephews... I hate kids!

-Oh. Cindy and I would have loved having kids... we dreamed of five, hopping around in that house on the seventh... my Cindy...

-Sorry Pat, I didn't mean to... do you still have the copper-silicon alloy brazing filler rods? The old ones...

-Sure, Lyo, I got the new supply yesterday ... but you have already finished last month's supply?

-Yes, I've been busy. So can I come to get some?

-Sure, I will be waiting for you!

[akiameokami]

Popular Potter

Look at him, looking so smug as that curly-haired reject has her legs strewn across his lap. Potter. It just isn’t right for someone of his status to be with someone like her. He is a pureblood, she is muggle-born, and to make matters worse she has an eyebrow ring! Her poise certainly isn’t a redeeming quality either. I cannot see a single element that makes her good enough for him, expect perhaps that she is smart enough to put Raven Claw’s brightest to shame. If it wasn’t for her lack of professionalism and personal upkeep I am sure she would be in Raven Claw and not Gryffindor. She has changed him so much since they started dating. Potter used to be such a prince, but even since they got together he has been hanging out with anyone, even the problematic Weasleys. I can’t believe his parents let him do that, do they not care about how it will effect their status? Father always reminds me to be cautious of my social relations because they will effect him greatly. He would simply die if he saw me with someone adorned in chains such as Hermione chooses.  The brazed crème a top the shit soufflé is that Harry Potter got a tongue ring! His parent’s certainly know nothing of this, but for the first time ever, I think I may not make Father privy to this. Potter and I have been associates every since primary school, and the tongue ring is a secret to all but his inner most circle. Except somehow Ronald and Hermione have become the bulk of that circle since we entered Hogwarts. To think that first semester we picked out matching Slytherin class rings together, and he somehow became a Gryffindor like them. Maybe classes do divide people too definitively? Or maybe he is changing as a person.. He always did have an affinity for the muggle world and other oddities, I just never thought he’d choose them over me. 

“Hi Har- Er, Potter, and company”, I say awkwardly as I approach their group. They all go quiet as they look at me, the only green clad robe amongst a sea of red. I feel as if this griffons pride may swallow me whole. They seem to be waiting for Harry to respond before they pounce, he really has gone from a Prince to a King. 

“Draco!” Harry exclaims as he moves Hermione's legs off and stands to greet me. I go for a slight wave but he pulls me into a hug. I can feel the daggers from his entourage. “I haven’t seen you around school in a while, what has Snape been forcing you into this time?” He asked, staring only at me. I’d appreciate the opportunity to get lost in his viper green eyes, but I can’t hold his stair. He knows my distaste for Snape, but he doesn’t know why. It’s a story for another time, but he’d already know it if he’d never stopped talking to me. 

“Oh, no, Snape is no longer tutoring me. Instead of academic pursuits, I’ve decided to try out for the quidditch team. Seems they have taken a fancy to my flying skills!” it hurts to not tell him to truth, to see him go from someone who I could tell anything to, to having to smile through the biggest heart break I’ve ever had. When I mention quidditch he gets very excited, and his posse eases up a bit. It is not uncommon for groups of different classes to enthuse over quidditch together, it is one of the few social glues we have. “What a coincidence! I will be joining the quidditch team as a legacy next season!” he says very boisterously, “I know they are expecting a lot because of my father, but I think they will be pleasantly surprised. I did always win when we would race, right?” He says with a slap to my shoulder. To others this would look like a casual challenge, but for me that slight touch meant so much more. It brought back summers spent struggling to learn how to fly out behind the greenhouse. The time he carried me back to Mother after I was able to be the first to get off the ground and flew too high. 

“You’re right, you used to be much better than me. Who knows if it’s changed, maybe you could have a practice race with me and give me some pointers if I lose?”. This audacious bastard would never turn down a challenge, and despite knowing I will likely lose, it means we’d finally have a chance to spend some time together so I’m willing to “take the L” as his muggle friends would say. 

“Harry, that’d be awesome to watch!”, “Yea Harry darling, you should host a little Gryffindor versus Slytherin flying practice before the season starts!’ Ron and Hermione cheer him on from the background. The other Gryffindor's start to chime in on how they would love to see a friendly match and see how skilled the new flyers are. “Well Draco, what do you say? I’m game to leave all you snakes in the dust, but only if you think Slytherin has enough flyers to make it worth the effort”, he chuckles as he says it, but he squeezes my shoulder with a bit of aggression behind it. He didn’t want it to be a spectacle, but I’m not going to clean up his messes if he wont be my friend anymore. 

“Sure Harry, I think I can pull together some wizards and witches that will make it worth your precious time.” I flatly announce as I start to walk away. I make myself keep stepping forward, and I can hear their snickers behind me. I walk straight away from him, no not quite, I walk straight to Snape's office. I wonder if he knows the pain he puts me through? Being compared to the Potter-Prince growing up, Father pushing me to be better than him, Harry having the audacity to be such an amazing man, friend, and first. Yet he also has the power to be the person to put me through more pain by not being in my life, driving me to focus on my studies, to get Severus to be my tutor, to use Severus as a coping method to get over him. Do you know what you’ve done to me Harry? 

~~~Imagine a world where Harry didn’t grow up with the Dursley’s, where Voldermort wasn’t a thing, where Lily and James didn’t die. Would Draco and Harry have been friends? Would they have been more? Harry and Draco are 17, nearing graduation and independence, but that also means they are climaxing from their teenage angst and heartbreak. Will they get closure?

I approach Severus’s office, emotions flooding me. After Harry and I got accepted to Hogwarts and he started drifting away, I found myself lost. At first, I believed his excuses for why he bailed on our plans, and then I blamed myself thinking I made him mad, and then I realized he just didn’t like me anymore. The self blaming was the hardest to get over, but Severus helped with that. I chose to focus on my studies, I had to find something productive to do so that Father would be proud of me again. He got very angry when I messed up the connection with the Potters. I decided instead to try and be very academically accomplished, so I needed a good tutor. Father and Mother were both very familiar with Severus Snape and knew him as an intelligent man and an excellent wizard despite being only 6 years older than me. They arranged for him to be my tutor, and he lived much closer to the school than we did, which meant I would study at his house and in the summers I stay with him. Since he is also a teacher at Hogwarts we don’t ever interact politely as school, because frankly our relationship is unconventional. to the public. I don’t love him, he doesn’t love me, but we both have been burned by the Potters more than once and despite all our pain, we still love them. Don’t get me wrong, Rus is very good to me, and we have had some very sentimental memories, but I can never mean as much to him as Lily I don’t think. That and I am not willingly to fall in love. 

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*  - “Come in.” I walk in and instantly Rus’s face goes from stone cold to slightly softer. “Draco, I assume you came to speak about your last test scores?” He arches an eyebrow and nods at the door indicating I should close it. 

“Oh come on Rus, I know we have an arrangement to not interact extra here but I..” I close the door and try not to meet his eyes. I know what I am feeling, and its stupid! I can’t explain it though. He closes the door while reaching over me. With his other arm he pulls into a hug. 

“Use your words Draco.” He kisses the top of my head while whispering softly. I bury my face in his shirt. How do I tell him that I am hurting because the person who means the most to me, acknowledged me, and it left me feeling hollow? “Is it about Mr. Potter? I saw you speaking in the courtyard. That was dangerous.” I let out a shaky sigh. This is why we are together, because we share the same pain. 

“Yea..” I mutter, “We are going to have a little race between Slytherin House and Gryffindor to see who the faster upcoming flyers will be.” Even saying it sounds absolutely  ridiculous! It’s a bloody pissing contest! Yet nothing has been able to break me out of this numbness until now. Rus braces the small of my back as we lean against his office door. I look up to see him with a small smile, “I understand. I think this will be for the best. Whether it is closer you get, or simply a win. I be here if it goes wrong”. He is so consistent. Just as expected, after saying something so sweet that I could almost develop feelings, he leans down and begins a gentle kiss. He pulls my waist into him, spreading my legs with his knee. I kiss him back while running my fingers through his hair. I reach down for his belt, trying to undo it. He stops my hand and pulls back, “Now Mr. Malfoy, we are on school grounds.” He says with his stern, teacher voice. He the leans in and whispers, “You can show my what that Malfoy mouth is good for later”. I feel my dick jump a little bit, giving me a semi. This is how I cope. Feelings cannot negate the power of something physical, and Severus Snape needs to forget about the Potters just as much as I do. We were a match made in Hell. 

“Draco....” I hear Harry’s voice calling my name, but it sounds distorted, almost as if I’m underwater. “Draco!” it comes through clearly this time, but it isn’t Harry, It’s Blaise yelling at me to rouse me from my sleep. I had returned to the dorms embarrassingly late, but I had the forethought to lay out my quidditch gear ahead of time so I wouldn’t be scrambling in the morning. “Draco, wake the fuck up! We’re gonna be late to the race!” Blaise is still yelling but I can hear him heading for the door. Late? What did he mean late? I roll over and check the time, he was right, I had about five minutes to go from bed to the quidditch field. Fuck. 

“I almost thought you chickened out Draco!” Harry taunts as I approach the quidditch field, running as fast as I can with all my gear on. I was able to gather three other Slytherins that wanted to race, and who were marginally decent. Sadly Harry seemed to have a whole team that wanted to test us. I glance at Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle and they do not seem to be exuding confidence. I got them into this so the least I can do is be the one who people blame. “What? Run away from you Potter? I could never”, I say a little too seriously while making eye contact. I catch the slightest frown from Harry, but it fades as quickly as it appeared. “Well then, lets get this over with. It sounded fun, but looking at your little group, it just feels like bullying.” He rejoins his group at the start line. The course was to make one large loop around campus while going through specified markers, such as looping through the womping willow and its thrashing limbs, and past Hagrids hut. It is just the school campus, but that doesn’t make it not dangerous. That is why I wore my protective gear, but as I glance around I see that most everyone else was casually dressed with the exception of Longbottom. He looked as if he was wrapped in bubble wrap. I don’t want to be associated with the likes of him so I discard my protective layer.  I return my attention to the other end of the field where Hermione stands with the flare, and off it goes. I must’ve been disassociating during the count down. I feel the wind of the others taking off before I see the bristles of their brooms when they speed past me. Shit. I take off as fast as I can, but I am not too concerned about the starting line. Anyone can get up, its staying there that’s the problem. 

The first obstacle is the peaks of the school, where we stand the danger of Mr. Fletcher seeing us and everyone getting in trouble. This obstacle is more about stealth than speed, you could speed right through the peaks, but you would certain alarm everyone inside the castle. The trick to making it without being seen is to pay attention and roof hop, taking a break to wait out anyone who may see you. I can see ahead of me where two Gryffindor flyers drop altitude instantly, nearly getting caught. I swerve away from that tower and loop around the other way, hopping off the roof after checking the next peak. When I emerge from the other side of the peaks I see Harry far ahead, Ronald right behind him, and Blaise  on their tail. either no one else made it through, or they are behind me, because no one would be ahead of Harry. We approach Hagrids hut and drop down low for the loop, I see Blaise take the turn too tightly and have to drop to the ground to prevent himself from going tip over tail. Ronald falls behind me as he flew too close to the hippogriff and got the tail of his broom snipped out. The race is between Harry and I as we approach the womping willow. It is especially crabby today it seems, or perhaps that was just because I was actually flying closer too it and not away from it the way I would have preferred. As we near the willow I am close enough that I could grab the bristles on Harry’s broom if I wanted to. I follow his maneuvers dodging the willows grasps. There is no denying that when it comes to agility Harry has an edge on me. There is no doubt that James took the time to train him personally. Despite all his preparation I see Harry narrowly avoid getting swept by a branch, which meant I had no time to avoid the branch at all. The willow makes contact with my broom and sends me plummeting to the ground. I’d rather jump and break something, that be strangled by a tree. The impact knocks the breath out of me, and the pain floods my body. My vision goes black and once again I feel like I am in bed, floating into nothingness. 

“Draco?!?!” I hear Harry’s voice calling out to me, but I don’t respond. Blaise wont fool me again. He just wants me to wake up from my peaceful nothingness. Then the pain hits me and I remember what happened. I open my eyes to see a sweaty and shirtless Harry tying my arm in a makeshift sling. “Draco.. please say something..” He mutters as he struggles with the knot. 

“Ouch you bloody bastard, that fucking hurts!” I squeak as he tightens it too much. Despite my pain I see a look of relief cloud his face. “Other than your arm, what hurts? I can’t tell if anything else is broken. I already have Ron and Blaise going to get a teacher. I am so sorry Draco, it wasn’t suppose to happen like this!” Harry is running his sentences together as he is frantically searching me over for any other damages. Everything hurts, but what I feel the most is the throbbing in my chest. Did I really have to almost die for him to say my name in such a caring way? I don’t want to be here, it hurts to see him like this knowing it is just me that is feeling this way. “Professor Snape!” Harry yells as Severus approaches with Ron and Blaise right behind him. I see Rus reach for his wand and the next thing I know Harry is swept away from me by an unseen force, flown at least three yards away. “Harry Potter! What have you done now?!” Severus yells, abnormally angry. He turns his attention toward me, worry lines streaking his face. He looks me over and his face softens. A wave of his wand and I feel a million times better. He leans down next to me and whispers, “You’ll be okay Draco, I’ll take care of this”. He turns his attention to Harry, “While I transport this young man who could very well be crippled, I’d recommend you contact your parents before I get the chance. Let them know I expect to be seeing them soon.” Severus knows better than to touch me, so he makes me float using Hermione's favorite spell. He must have cast a different spell as well, because the last thing I see is Harry’s terrified face as Severus brings me back toward the castle. 

I wake up to a sudden jolt of pain coming from, well, everywhere. The most prominent pain is coming from my right arm. I sit up to exam the damage, but to my surprise I see none other than Hermione Granger sitting next to my bed in the infirmary, reading of course. Without a word she raises her hand and indicated the number 1, probably to suggest “one minute”. I wait for her to finish her page. 

“I know about you and Harry.” She announces bluntly as she closes her book carefully. She is smart, but she can’t possibly be that smart. “Well, yes, I assume you would know about how he got me clobbered by a tree. You were there.” I try and dismiss her suspicious words. She does not buy a word of it. “No, you twit, I know about you two’s past, and I am willing to bet that your annoying behavior is because you still have feelings for him.” She states it so matter o’ factly that I am left speechless. She rolls her eyes and gets up to leave, “Well, I sure hope that is the case. Him and I broke up you see. After I found out the only reason he wanted to be with me is because I am smart enough to brew a Polyjuice potion of you so he can fuck it, I decided maybe I should be with someone who was actually attracted to me.” She walks away without giving me a chance to argue, or well, say anything at all really. He does what?  She runs into someone at the door and I hear them exchange words, and to my surprise the next person to walk in is Harry Fucking Potter. He stands awkwardly at the end of my bed for what feels like an eternity before asking, “how are you feeling?”. Despite his concern, he wont make eye contact with me. He doesn’t even seem like he wants to be here. I sink back into the bed and roll away from him. “You can go, I am fine. I bet your friends are lost without you.” I bite my tongue at the end, knowing that isn’t how I feel. I feel the bed shift as he sits down on the edge. 

“Draco.. I don’t want to go. I feel terrible about what happened, and I Hermione just told me that you know about.. me, or us, or however you want to say it, and what I am trying to say is, “ He takes a deep breath, “Draco I am so sorry. I know your father doesn’t want me around you, but it hurts to see you like this, and it hurts to not be with you.”. His voice got weak as he finished his sentence. His hand grabbed my leg and squeezed it. It’d been forever since I had felt his warmth. 

I can’t. 

I can’t. I can’t.  I can’t  I can’t  I can’t  I can’t  I can’t  I can’t  I can’t  I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’tIcantIcantICANTICANTICANTICANT! 

Why? Why does he have to do this? Why does he have to hurt me like this? What does this all mean? Does he think that because he said sorry I can just roll over and pretend the last two years never happened?! HE LEFT ME! He hurt me! He got me hurt! When I lost him, I lost the love for myself as well. How can he say those things to someone who is just a shell? 

I start breathing desperately, my heart racing and my head flooding with these thoughts. I can’t control it, I can’t stop it, and I can’t move. I want to reach out to him, to grab his hand, to push him away, I don’t know!  

“Mr. Potter, now would be a good time for you to leave.” Severus’s calming voice announces over the hallway in the infirmary. I hear his footsteps swiften towards us. “Proffessor Snape I was only-” Harry starts, but gets interrupted by a stern and almost hissing whisper, “No, Mr. Potter. Mr. Malfoy’s parents are heading this way, I strongly recommend you make it as if you were never here. Do you understand?”. That very much so sounded like a threat. “Of course, I’m sorry... Please take care of him!”. Harry runs down the hallway and I hear the door slam before Severus addresses me. He kneels beside the bed to be face to face with me. “Draco, I’m so sorry. Deep breaths”. He says gently as he wipes away tears that I didn’t know I had. “Don’t worry about your parents. I will tell them now is a bad time. We will all reconvene at my house this evening once you recover from the healing spell. You can ask them about what Mr. Potter said if you must, I will protect you. Always.” He gently kisses my forehead and leaves silently, leaving me to suffer, as always. 

It's painfully awkward sitting at dinner with my parents and Severus. He was able to fix my arm, but it left me what could only be described as the largest hangover one has ever suffered. To top it off, since I was okay physically, my father was going to make sure I wasn't okay emotionally or mentally. He'd done nothing but berate me for causing a scene. I zone out of his rants and stare down at where Severus is squeezing my knee. He is trying to be supportive, but all I can notice is a strange tattoo on his arm that wasn't there before.

"Severus, what is this?" I ask as I drag my fingers over the snake that's wrapped around a skull. It graces his forearm so delicately, it really adds to his aesthetic. My father looks appalled at my blatant change of topic, and Severus looks panicked. He tries to cover it with his sleeve, but father stops him. "Severus Snape, is that the reaction to my spell?" Father stairs him down.

"Yes, my lord. I've no excuses for my behaviour. I will only say that never once have I sought to harm Draco. I've had his best interests in mind, always." Severus hangs his head as he finishes his sentence, knowing what he has just admitted.

"Draco, that mark - or something definitive, will appear on anyone you've had relations with." Father waves his hand towards Severus's arm as he struggles to remain calm. Mother chokes down a sob. "I had my suspicions about the Potter child, but I suppose this confirms that you are exactly the deviant whore I assumed you to be." I- wait, Harry? He knew about us? If he did something like this, something permanent to someone who worshipped him, then what did he do to Harry?

"Father! Tell me, is Harry's scar because of this?!". I grab Severus's hand and squeeze it, needing all the support from him that I can get in this challenging moment. Bever had I spoken againt father, but this was going too far!

"Of course. Are you really that daft to think he spontaneously manifested such an atrocious mark? Honestly Draco, to think you've tainted a wizard of such nobilty, and to include Severus on your path of destruction. I am ashamed to call you my son." Lucious stands to leave, grabbing Narcissa by the arm and dragging her with him. I never thought it would come to this, I knew father could be nasty, but I never believed he would be this way towards me. Everything I did was to make him look to, to do the Malfoy name proud. Yet he can't even let me love who I want to love? I want to chase after him but Severus weighs me down in my chair. "Don't Draco, let him cool off before you try anything. It wont end well if you pursue him now.".

The next day at school I can't help but stair at Harry's scar in every shared class. Severus explained how the curse worked, he explained that the mark would burn and feel as if it were festering when the host was around me. He explained that the reason Harry grew distant was because of my father and James Potter deciding to seperate us by any means necessary. Severus only learned about this after he began tutoring me and learned of my heart break. I still couldn't bring myself to speak to him. I don't know whether I feel betrayed, or heart broken. I don't know where I will go when the weekend comes, because I can't go home, or to Severus's, and I can't stay here. The library seems like the only logical option to kill a little bit of time at before finding a place to spend the night.

"Draco?" Before I even look, I know it is Harry who has joined me in the endless rows of books. "Draco.. I am so sorry. I hope you're okay. I hope Luscious didn't.. do anything, to you. Like he used to-" "STOP" I can't take this anymore! "Did you know? About the curse, about our fathers, and what he would do? This whole time were you just hiding from my reality?!" He is standing right here in front of me but as I yell at him I only stare at the scar on his forehead, knowing it must be throbbing.

"I knew.. after it appeared, they explained it to me. They said it was what you wanted, and that this would help us distance ourselves." He steps closer to me, reaching out for me. "But I knew it couldn't have been true. I figured it out after you started getting so familiar with Professor Snape. I tried asking my father about it and he told me the truth, but I thought you'd moved on so I didn't want you to have to choose.", he grabs my hand and holds it close to his chest. "But I'm done waiting. I don't think you've moved on, I just think you're too afraid to be yourself. So stop me if this isn't what you want." The last words are practically a whisper as his lips close in on mine. It'd been so long since I'd felt his touch, let alone his kiss. He starts out soft and sweet, lingering to feel the softness of my lips. When I don't fight his kiss, he gets more aggressive, his tongue parting my lips and finding mine. He grabs the back of my head and laces his fingers through my hair, cushioning the impact of him pushing my into the bookshelf. "Draco~" he mutters my name as he leans into me. I can feel his hard on pressing against me. "Fuck Draco", he lips press against my neck as he kisses me intensely, trying to leave a mark. "I've never stopped wanting you", he bites me gently, "I never let you get taken from me again".

[granvarones]

“Any disease that is treated as a mystery and acutely enough feared will be felt to be morally, if not literally, contagious.”

Susan Sontag, Illness As Metaphor

In December of 2019, a virus emerged in Wuhan, the capital city of the Hubei Province, located in China. This novel coronavirus was now beginning to infect, sicken and kill people. This stirred global pandamonium, rooted in anti-asian racism, prejudice and xenophobia. As the world began to construct narratives of how this emerged, coronavirus was steadily building up its network, and infecting many globally. Scientists point to a species jump, from animals to humans. This is the trajectory of many viruses we know of, such as HIV. It was named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization on February 11, 2020, meaning coronavirus disease and tagged with nineteen to establish that it surfaced in 2019. Interestingly enough, a simulation of a pandemic caused by a “novel zoonotic coronavirus” was held by the Center For Health Security, in October 2019. The scenario suggested that this virus would be “transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic.” In this simulation, the origin of the virus were pig farms in Brazil, but the accuracy of this exercise provides eerie foreboding.

Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, sounds familiar because it is in the family of viruses that caused the 2003 Sars Outbreak. This current outbreak was not quelled in the same way and now is identified as a pandemic, which means it is spreading rapidly, globally.

HIV history reminds us of another time of panic and uncertainty. HIV is transmitted by blood, seminal and vaginal fluid; anal fluid and breast milk, that enters the bloodstream through mucousal tissue and/or other ways. Sars-CoV-2 appears to spread by oral or nose droplets, aerosol and surfaces touched by hands, or indirectly sprayed by the droplets of those infected. This makes COVID-19 more contagious than HIV. It has been proven by the exponential infection rates growth around the world. Yet many people are committed to believing the racist notion that it is an “Asian” virus.

HIV first infected a young Black boy in St. Louis named Robert Rayford, who may have been the first person documented in the U.S. to die of AIDS. A reporter first talked about Robert in a Chicago Tribune article in 1987. HIV clocked the world’s collective consciousness on June 5, 1981 when the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) reported 5 cases of pneumocystis pneumonia among previously healthy “homosexuals” in Los Angeles. This lit a storm of hatefulness on the marginalized gay community and AIDS, which was once called the “Gay Related Immune Deficiency” became the juggernaut that leveled whole queer communities. Many beautiful people perished and there are still many dying silently of AIDS, even today.

Ronald Reagan, a republican, was president of the United States when HIV attacked and Donald Trump is currently a republican president during the coronavirus pandemic. Both are adherants to white supremacist frameworks of government, with Reagan concerned with trickle down economics and the war on drugs, a failure that lead to the mass incarceration of Black and brown folks, another enemy to HIV positive people. Historically, Reagan slowly dragged his feet during this public health crisis as many buried their loved ones. Trump, concerned with faux nationalism, currently uses his law and order rhetoric to galvanize white working class people against organized foes: One week it’s Black people in Chicago, the next Muslims, and lately it is China. By moving his target, it allows for a never ending list of the made up culprits of his imagined war that has devastating material impacts on communities he named as public enemies.

Reagan ignored the crisis, a top official laughed at AIDS and ACT UP fought back, organizing radical direct actions, throwing ashes on the white house lawn during the first Bush’s Presidency, holding public funerals, making trauma actionable and blowing lids off of hypocrisy, inaction and the violence of indifference. Reagan’s nonresponse was like Trump’s passive and deflecting response, both men, white and Presidents ravaged communities by either shifting blame, turning their backs or escalating fears by creating an enemy to point to. In Reagan’s day it was the gays and Trump’s enemy is China. Proving that white supremacy is the true parallel.

Like ACT UP, formations of other gay men came together as People With AIDS. Communities of the dying: the faggots, the transwomen and the sex workers took to the streets, collected medicines at home and shared knowledge to get us through an epidemic. We were held by a loving community of lesbians, radical doctors and unapologetic drag queens. We brazed through losing many while saving our souls and preserving our histories with undying collective work. We are always the answer we are searching for. Powerful, even when we are down, shining a light on the wrongs of humanity.

Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad is a poz organizer and writer from Philadelphia.