AIDS and Black America
IN 2005, hip-hop artist Kanye West did something unusual for a young black man. In an interview on MTV, West described how he learned to hate gays as a child, how wrong it was, and called for an end to gay-bashing in rap music. With his simple story, the rapper pierced through a deep history of black antigay bias that has long kept many black men from coming out of the closet.
West never mentioned AIDS, but by forcing the issue of homophobia, he was ahead of the curve. Last month, a year after West's statement, the nation's black leaders met at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto. There, they vowed not just to fight AIDS but to shatter the silence around homosexuality, drug use, and the prevalence of sex behind prison walls -- all factors that have fueled a surge of HIV cases among African-Americans. ``Now is the time for us to face the fact that AIDS has become a black disease," said Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP. ``It has invaded our house, and our leaders must accept ownership and fight it with everything we have." Jesse Jackson called AIDS black America's ``serial killer."
That assessment is undeniable: AIDS is claiming a disproportionate number of black lives. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black Americans make up half of all new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. A 2005 CDC study in five major cities found that 46 percent of black men who had sex with a man tested positive for HIV. These conditions have also led to soaring infection rates for black women. AIDS is now the leading cause of death for African-American women between the ages of 25 and 34.
The numbers demand culturally relevant action, as well as universal testing. But there are real dangers to labeling AIDS, or any epidemic, a ``black disease." As soon as Bond spoke those fiery words, he renewed longstanding concerns that ghettoization of the AIDS epidemic weakens the fight against it.
Cathy Cohen, who teaches at the University of Chicago and has tracked the effect of AIDS in the black community, is one of those worriers. ``There's been a recognition, not just by black leaders but white leaders, too, that if AIDS gets understood only as a black disease, it makes it easier for legislators and public officials to walk away from this, and to have some kind of cultural narrative that black people somehow brought it on themselves," she said. As far back as the 1980s, Cohen said, advocates who were aware of the extent of AIDS among blacks were reluctant to highlight it, fearing how it might affect policy.
Telling the truth about AIDS means not only recognizing its impact on blacks but on the larger society. Especially now that medical advances have enabled people living with HIV to prolong their lives, not getting that treatment into the hands of everyone who needs it is a collective moral failure.
