I'm in the middle of watching Apple TV+'s new mini documentary series "They Call Me Magic" chronicling Magic Johnson's career with the Lakers and his activist work after being diagnosed with HIV. But the moment that struck me the most was a moment that didn't involve Magic at all.
As the series begins to transition from an NBA highlight reel to a stirring tale of overcoming HIV, the filmmakers slowly begin to pepper in details about America's history with HIV and the way in which those with HIV were treated and the key people in America's fight to contain the virus. And as they begin introducing these folks, a now all-too-familiar face suddenly bursts onto the screen.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, smiling in a modern-looking living room backdrop, introduces himself by saying he has been involved in the fight against AIDS since "the first few weeks that we knew it was a new disease." The documentary doesn't dwell on his role in the AIDS pandemic, but much like his life in public service for the last half-century, it is clear that he was always working in the background whether he was on the screen or not.
I'm sure many people who actually lived through the brunt of the AIDS pandemic were well aware of Fauci's involvement, but as someone who runs out of toilet paper and forgets to order more on Amazon by the time I get off the toilet, I had totally forgotten this. The image in my head of Fauci is so intertwined with the COIVD-19 pandemic that I forgot he even lived for almost 80 years in a world without COVID.
It's utterly ridiculous that we've so heavily politicized a man that is in every essence of the word a true, selfless patriot. Sure, he got some things wrong about the COVID-19 pandemic. We all did, the difference being most of us didn't have to share our thoughts on national TV with every journalist in the country back-checking our predictions for accuracy six weeks later. But while the narrative in the news recently has been hyper-focused on the failures of our modern US government, seeing Fauci in this documentary was a nice reminder that for every one sweater-vested congressman who would lay down his life to protect the filibuster but hardly blinks an eye at a classroom of murdered school children, there are twenty people in our government who are working really hard to just do what they can to make America a better place for all of us living in it. And I'm not sure I always give them enough thought.
Thank you, Dr. Fauci, for gracefully enduring everything you have in the last two-and-a-half years and for the steady-handed leadership that pulled us through an incredibly difficult chapter in America's history. You are the model for the patriot we should all aspire to be.
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