Journalist Steven Thrasher’s theory of a “viral underclass” inspired him to write a 2022 book by the same name. But 10 years ago, it was the case of Michael Johnson, a college wrestler in St. Charles arrested on charges of spreading HIV, that first brought Thrasher to St. Louis.
The case against Johnson made national news as details emerged of the prosecution’s case against him, including testimony from the athlete’s sexual partners. Thrasher covered the 2015 trial for BuzzFeed News.
“I could really see how all of this was just being heaped on one person who is being portrayed as a bad actor,” Thrasher said on St. Louis on the Air. “Even though there's been medicine for a long time, and the ways to actually keep people safe from HIV are well known … those approaches were really abandoned in place of just trying to blame everything on this one young man and try to make it seem like he was alone responsible.”
Though Johnson was sentenced to serve 30 years in prison, a Missouri appeals court later ruled that his criminal trial was “fundamentally unfair” and granted him parole. Johnson was released in 2019 after serving five years in prison.
It was during Thrasher’s time reporting on Johnson’s case that he became interested in studying the clash between society and the law. Part of that inspiration came in 2014, when Thrasher reported on the ground during the Ferguson Uprising. Over the next years, he returned to St. Louis multiple times to cover both Johnson’s criminal case and the rise of St. Louis’ Black Lives Matter movement.
The experiences stayed with Thrasher. Borrowing the term “viral underclass” — first used in 2011 by activist Sean Strub — as a lens and his debut book’s title, Thrasher organized those experiences in chapters that connected the criminalization of HIV/AIDS, the story of Michael Johnson, the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“HIV laws very explicitly say that somebody living with HIV is going to be living under one set of laws, and people without HIV are not,” Thrasher explained. “Sean used the example of how babies are born with HIV and they're automatically second-class citizens for life. That's how I first encountered the term [‘viral underclass’]. I then heard activists using it to talk about different ways that these laws might be addressed and made better.”
Laws criminalizing HIV/AIDS have indeed changed in recent years. In the wake of Johnson’s trial and later release, Missouri’s legislature passed a law in 2021 that reduced the penalty for exposing a person to the virus. The law now requires that prosecutors prove a person acted “knowingly” to obtain a felony conviction.
Thrasher was back in St. Louis this past weekend, as a featured speaker during the Dec. 2 commemoration of World AIDS Day at the Missouri History Museum.
“From roughly 1981 until about 1995, 1996, when medicine started to become available, for those 15 years or so, getting AIDS, even just getting HIV, was considered a death sentence,” he said. “I think that one of the things that makes up this viral underclass is this understanding of ‘death is imminent’ and out of that, of course, horrible things can happen. But really beautiful things happen, including political solidarity, compassion, really showing up for your brothers and sisters and kin who are around you, showing up for people that you might not even know, but you know that they're facing death in a similar way.”
“I think that's one of the really defining characteristics of the viral underclass,” he continued. “It's not only death and destruction and sadness, it's also seeing people come together and understanding a shared responsibility for our collective human body.”
To learn more about Steven Thrasher’s research into the “viral underclass” and how he connected his reporting in Ferguson to his study of viruses, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Jada Jones is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
