It was two decades ago today that Magic Johnson announced he had HIV and was retiring from the NBA. Of course, he would come back to the All-Star game, the Dream Team, and eventually to play and coach again in brief stints. He would also turn into a mogul – one of the most successful African-American businessmen of our era, if not ever.
Oh yeah – and he’s still alive.
Magic changed the paradigm for HIV. It was no longer a gay problem, it was no longer a white problem, it was something that could hit the healthiest person imaginable, and it was something that didn’t have to be a death sentence. Who among us, on November 7 of 1991, would have predicted that Magic would be alive in twenty years – let alone filthy rich, running businesses and raising literally millions of dollars for AIDS research?
The fact that the most terrifying illness of my adolescence has become something you manage and live with – if that’s not proof we live in the future, I don’t know what to tell you.