Award-winning motivational speaker and AIDS activist Rae Lewis Thornton spoke to an audience in ICC Auditorium last evening about the difficulties of dealing with AIDS.

In her presentation, entitled “Living With AIDS,” Thornton discussed her personal battle with AIDS and attempted to challenge stereotypes about the disease, provide educational information and encourage audience members to take control of their lives.

“I lived my life in denial for the first seven and a half years [after being diagnosed],” Thornton said.

Following a routine blood donation at a blood drive in Washington, D.C. in 1986, Thornton was diagnosed HIV positive at the age of 23. She said she refused to accept the reality of her situation by laughing at jokes that ridiculed AIDS patients and lying to friends about the cause of her weight loss. At the time, AIDS was a relatively new and controversial issue of national concern, she said.

“[People] were burning down houses and kicking people out of schools. It was a hard time to be told you had HIV,” Thornton said.

Having AIDS for eight years, Thornton speaks at schools across the nation with the aim of encouraging young people to take responsibility for their actions. Although she still doesn’t know who infected her, she says, the issue is no longer relevant.

“I stand here as a woman and accept the choices I’ve made about my life. `Could have’, `should have’ and `would have’ don’t make a difference in the real world,” she told the audience.

Thornton has been featured in stories from Ebony, Essence and Emerge magazines, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun Times and The Washington Post. In addition to appearing on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and “Nightline,” she received an Emmy in 1996 for a television series on first-hand stories of people living with AIDS.

Thornton also discussed the stereotypes that many unintentionally possess about AIDS victims. Referring to an AIDS information session at which she refrained from revealing her HIV-positive status to the audience, she said she concluded the presentation by asking the audience if they believed that AIDS victims were different from non-infected individuals.

While most audience members answered “no” to her question, she said, they were shocked when she revealed that she was HIV positive. According to Thornton, they had been inadvertently holding stereotypes.

“Basically they were telling me because you’re a college graduate, dress nice and are articulate you can’t have AIDS,” Thornton said.

Another topic of discussion for Thornton was the rising AIDS epidemic in the female African American community. According to Thornton, while the number of infected white males is declining, African American women are the fastest rising group of HIV victims. In addition, according to Thornton, heterosexual women are 10 times more likely to contract HIV from men than heterosexual men are from women.

Although Thornton said she thinks doctors are very far from a cure for the epidemic, she does believe that by making practical life choices and engaging in safe activity, young people can take control of their lives and the AIDS epidemic.

“You have a choice to have sex or not to have sex,” Thornton told the audience. “I figured out that I can’t save your life. You have to walk out of these doors, make your own decisions and live your own life,” she said.

The Lecture Fund was the primary fuding source for Thornton’s presentation. According to its Web site, the lecture fund “exists to provide a forum for the free exchange of speech and expression concerning various political, social and cultural issues.”

Thornton’s presentation concluded AIDS Week 2000 at Georgetown. Sponsored by the Diversity Working Group, the objective of AIDS Week was to commemorate World AIDS Day and educate university students and faculty about the epidemic, according to its organizers.