‘We need to talk to our children’ about HIV, Cookie Johnson tells Lexington audience
In the 30 years since her husband, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, was diagnosed with HIV, Cookie Johnson said a generation of young people has grown up that needs education about the disease, while the stigma surrounding it remains.
“I think that we’ve gotten quiet because people are not dying at alarming rates like they were in in the 90s,” she said. “Mothers, we need to talk to our children.”
Johnson sought to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS, encourage women and offer support for the LGBTQ community during her appearance Saturday night at the Lyric Theatre & Cultural Arts Center.
She said she realized she needed to start talking specifically to women when her husband was being interviewed by Oprah alongside an 18-year-old woman who said she didn’t know what HIV was when she was told she had contracted it.
“I don’t want another young woman like that,” Johnson said.
She said people who are sexually active should be tested regularly, and women must “be confident enough in the bedroom to ask the questions and stand up for yourself” by asking whether their partner has been tested and insisting that they use protection.
She also said churches need to play a larger role in reaching out to people with HIV and AIDS and stop stigmatizing it. HIV disproportionately affects the Black community because of stigma about the virus, poverty, health care barriers, racism and homophobia, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Johnson said people who have tested positive for the virus are still sometimes reluctant to get help, “and then they end up dying.”
She and her husband, whose life story is recounted in an Apple TV+ docuseries released Friday, have raised three children, including their son EJ, who she said came out to her in his early teen years.
She said it was initially very difficult for Magic to accept that their son was gay, and during one early conversation, “he told him that he was very disappointed in him.”
But she said the next morning, she found her husband hugging EJ in the hallway.
“He went down that morning, woke him up and told him, ‘You be whoever you want to be and I’ll be your dad and I’ll support you.’”
She encouraged other parents of LGBTQ children to “listen to them, talk to them.”
“We’re the ones who need to change,” she said.
Cheryl Sidney and Lillian Washington drove over from Georgetown to attend and said they were inspired by Johnson’s strength in dealing with her life’s challenges and her commitment to use her story to empower others.
“Very positive and inspiring, very educational,” Washington said afterward.
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton presented Johnson with a key to the city, telling her, “We are in admiration for your support of the fight against HIV/AIDS, and in women’s empowerment and in the LGBT community.
“All of our doors are open to you and your beautiful family.”
The event was sponsored by the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, Bluegrass Black Pride and AVOL Kentucky.
This story was originally published April 23, 2022 at 11:20 PM.
