It's the Brian Larrow Show on WNYC.

Good morning again everyone, and it's Black History Month,

a time when we look back at the hardships

black people in the United States have endured

since they were first abducted to this continent and highlight the glory of the community's achievements despite centuries of oppression.

And while recognizing this community's glory, its greatness born of grit, one might say,

we must also acknowledge the blind spots stemming from what might be called a desire to rise above.

And so we ask, what do you get when you combine a community seeking respect

after a long history of indignity with a virus that thrives on shame affecting the most vulnerable in our population.

Well for one thing you get poems like this one heard on last week's episode of Blind Spot,

The Plague in the Shadows hosted by Kywright.

This poem talks about a family going to a funeral of a son who died of AIDS and how they respond to it.

The mother was radiant and two composed.

She wore a black on black silk dress

which tied at the neck with a large bow and ended below the knee

in a wide knife pleats.

Her soul and pepper hair pulled into her.

The poem goes on to describe the whole family's

insistent cold dignity in this kind of detail until arriving at the deceased's lover.

Jeff, unconsciously, reached out to touch the putter-cast it, but was intercepted by the mother.

She whisked her hand away from the freezing politeness and said,

he's gone now.

...