Subscribe to Breaking NewsAnother AIDS Stat That Will Be Ignored
A few years back when I was gainfully employed at a weekly newspaper, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a press release that noted blacks accounted for 50 percent of the new HIV/AIDS diagnoses “in the United States in the 33 states with long-term, confidential name-based HIV reporting.” I was convinced this was a story we should be all over; however, my editor at the time yawned. He thought the numbers tragic (!) but not particularly newsworthy.
We argued a bit but I didn’t put up much of a fight. What was there to say really? HIV/AIDS was spreading through the black community at an alarming rate but for some reason writing about it was wasting space. According to my boss there were more important tales to tell.
This silence around HIV/AIDS and black folk is not atypical. Remember the 2004 Vice President debate when neither candidate knew what moderator Gwen Ifill was talking about when she said black women and AIDS in the same sentence? About a year ago when reporter Jason Bellini was moderating a panel during Pride Week (another !) no one had much to say when he asked why gay rights organizations were not in alarm mode over the HIV rates of gay black men. And don’t even get me started on how long it took the predominately black church to even put its toe in the waters of testing and prevention.
Hopefully a report by the Black AIDS Institute will break our silence, but I have my doubts. Called “Left Behind! Black America: A Neglected Priority in the Global AIDS Epidemic,” the report notes that while the US is a leader in dealing with AIDS in foreign lands, when it comes to the black community within US borders, the country is simply not doing enough.
“More Black Americans are infected with HIV than the total populations of people living with HIV in seven of the 15 countries served by PEPFAR [President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief],” said Phill Wilson, CEO of the Black AIDS Institute and one of the author’s of “Left Behind.”
This number indicts us all. Every single one of us.
has_te wrote: “There is point on perception to made here…
That is, like poverty and Darfurianhorror in Africa..
“Well, they’re just blacks. So..?”
I am not for a moment discounting the (obvious) racism that runs through our society. But I do not believe that is the reason for our ignoring the Darfur issue. If Darfur supplied us with OIL, we would have been all over that problem years ago.
While there can be no justification for the persistant lack of attention paid to this issue in the national media it must be pointed out that community leaders and national leaders for Blacks in the US are persistantly silent about AIDS as well. In the last four years I can not recall hearing any of the prominant Black religious, political or civic leaders raising this issue in any major forum – and I’ve been paying attention. When the issues of sex, sexuality, STIs and AIDS becomes a priority for the leaders of Black communities then perhaps awareness of the crisis will begin to dawn among Americans at large.
David,
You been paying attention? You sure?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-07-AIDS-meeting_N.htm
Part of the reason gay people may be quieter about the black AIDS epidemic, as sad as it is, is that black people have largely remained quiet when it comes to gay rights. There is a long-standing enmity between the two groups in a lot of areas due to the fact that, in the black community, serious homophobia is made acceptable and promoted by the central institution for black people: the church.
In short, when gay people have bled, black people have largely remained silent (ignoring such luminaries as Coretta Scott King, who strongly supported equality for gay people); in return, as black people hurt, gay people’s sympathy is muted by the bruising they’ve taken at the hands of the black church.
In the meantime, black people themselves remain significantly silent about the disease in their own community; it’s still a taboo subject for many who are already burdened by historic socioeconomic disadvantage as well as lower rates of education and health literacy flowing from that history.
Both facts are sad, and will take change on the parts of both communities. Caught in the middle of this are man-loving black men, who often refuse to identify as gay because of the homophobia within their own communities which has caused them to devalue themselves and risk their health and that of others. When external to one’s community, one is devalued for his race, and then internally in one’s community, he’s devalued for his sexual orientation, he is taught everywhere that he is worth less.
All of the above is sad. HIV is a social justice disease…man-loving black men live that reality.
RE: 2) can you point to a line in the post where I blamed “the majority.” Thanks James
From your article: This number indicts us all. Every single one of us.
The majority is included, I would suppose in “us all.” Now, did I say white America? No. I choose my words carefully.
At some point HIV infection rates rest more upon an individual or group socialization conscience – and not the conscience of all of society.
If infection rates in a given state are higher than in others, there is some pause to consider whether the message is getting out there. But with the over saturation of information there is no longer a way to hide behind what tv station gets to what area. Which is why I used my library point. In urban areas there is more likely to be greater access to information than remote areas. So the alarming rates cannot be explained by no resources.
Henceforth, I un-indict myself.
I am the Program Director for the STD/HIV Program for the Metro Public Health Department in Nashville Tennessee. For HIV Testing Day this year, I was the chair of a steering committee formed to address this particular subject. The committee was predominantly Africa-American, and was composed of pastors and community folks. Our task was to enlist 27 black churches in which the pastors would all, on June 29, preach close to the same message about HIV prevention in the black community, agree to take an oral HIV test in front of the their congregation, open up testing to the congregation during the service if they so desired, and sign a covenant that committed them to strengthening or starting health ministries in their churches with added emphasis on HIV prevention. This task was the charge of a City Councilman who is also a pastor. The outcome of 6 months of hard work was that we had 16 churches sign up; 13 pastors took HIV tests in front of their congregations; 11 opened their worship service for testing, and 259 folks were tested that day. Testing was provided by volunteers from 9 agencies including the Health Department. I have been privileged to become good friends with the Councilman. With this project I, as an openly gay white man, stood with him in front of his congregation and administered his test. His tradition is historically conservative and pentecostal, but he is moving forward with a new way of recognizing the dire concerns of HIV and the African-American community here in Nashville. For me, that represented a new day in Nashville that I hope will open many more doors. Our event was picked up by national black media as well as incredible local coverage, and we have had many requests from the Southeast fort more information. The event will happen again next year, and our goal is to enlist more churches on a yearly basis.