Race Relations in a Divided America; HIV Prevention in South Africa.
HOLMES: Welcome back to the program. We have just, of course, been discussing race in America. Well, South Africa has a history of racial struggle, but the company also carries another very heavy burden, an HIV epidemic, bigger than anywhere else in the world. Around 7 million people there are living with the virus. Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron, who's from South Africa, has set up a charity aimed at bringing that number down. She joined me from Johannesburg to talk about her work.</s>HOLMES: Charlize Theron, thanks so much for your time. Great to have you on the program. Let's start with why South Africa, your home country, is a country so heavily burdened by the AIDS epidemic in this day and age.</s>THERON: Well, South Africa has been the hardest hit by this epidemic and still is. And it's just really unfortunate because HIV is 100 percent preventable. And being South African, I just couldn't see myself not doing something. I think once I left South Africa and came back and started really, as a young adult, paying attention to statistics and seeing the kind of unnecessary suffering that was happening here, there was - I had to do something about it. And so, it was really just a question of how can I be the most effective in helping to stop this epidemic.</s>HOLMES: What sort of damage is being done to African society? I know you've spoken before of so many children who lost parents and it was something that you grew up with and were very well aware of, growing up in South Africa, right?</s>THERON: Yes. I don't think there is a child of my generation that didn't grow up in hushed silences and their parents or adults always whispering about this monster that nobody really knew anything about and people were dying at a degree that was really frightening. And I think it definitely marked me as a child. Also, just kind of the misconceptions about what AIDS was at that time. And seeing a photo of Princess Di visiting a hospital with HIV-positive patients really moved me. We have come a long way. It's been - we have the largest treatment program in the world right now, but we still have 53 percent of our HIV infected people not - HIV-infected people not on treatment. So, we still have a long way to go. And I think for me and where my focus really stands with CTAOP is in really focusing on the adolescence of this country, the young people of this country who will be the future of this country, and not treating them to kind of curb AIDS, but to invest in them and invest in their youth and their health to be the future leaders, not just of South Africa, but of this world. I'm trying to get people not positive, so they don't need treatment.</s>HOLMES: Right.</s>THERON: That's my hope and my dream.</s>HOLMES: Where is the shortfall? Where is the government responsibility? Why are there places in countries like South Africa where that isn't available? Why on earth is it not available?</s>THERON: Look, the country - South Africa as a country and as a government has really stepped up to the play. And it took a long time for them to get there, but they really are a country that is taking this very seriously. But when you look at our economic structure and where we are with our economy, we're not a country that can be solely responsible for the burden of what this cost is. We need a bit of a bigger push here. There is a huge misconception. I think a lot of Americans think 25 percent of the budget is sent to South Africa or to AIDS aid. And that is not true. It's less than 1 percent and now it will be less than that since President Trump's administration made these cuts to that part. And so, I think as an international world, we have to look at how do we stop something that's a virus that could come back in several years or maybe tomorrow and cause a lot more damage than what it did in the last 30 years by getting 76 million people infected and having 35 million people die. That's something that might be a South African problem right now, but could very much be an international problem. So, why not solve it here, which is to end this.</s>HOLMES: Well thought. And I was going to ask you about President Trump and the cutbacks to overseas health projects and the impact of that. And you did address that. It just brought me to another thought, though, at the International AIDS Conference last year, you said we value some lives more than others. That's still the case in your view?</s>THERON: Well, when you look at the amount of people that are infected and how the AIDS epidemic has ravaged sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade versus what's been happening in the Western world, how can you deny that?</s>HOLMES: Right.</s>THERON: I think that some lives are valued more than others and I think that goes beyond the AIDS epidemic. I'm seeing it right now in America. So, I think that we have to look at that as a global front. We have to be brave enough to kind of look at that as part of the problem that's been keeping the AIDS epidemic alive for so long.</s>HOLMES: When you say you're seeing that in the US now, you mean with the current environment, what we've seen in Charlottesville and those issues sort of having a broader context. THERONL Yes. I see racism alive and well and that scares me and saddens me.</s>HOLMES: Thank you so much, Charlize Theron.</s>THERON: Thank you so much for having me.</s>HOLMES: And from a South African star to an icon, a quote by Nelson Mandela is the talk of Twitter, after this tweet by former President Barack Obama featuring the words of Mandela became the most liked tweet of all time. When we come back, imagining America at its peak, the hope and joie de vivre of new Americans who became citizens at the top of Freedom Tower. We will be right back with that.