Philadelphia has two free weekly magazines that come out every Thursday. One is the City Paper and the other is the Philadelphia Weekly. They’re both unabashedly liberal and they are both excellent. PW has the advantage of employing one of the star reporters of our age. You should bookmark Kia Gregory’s ’round about column. This week Gregory tackles the issue of AIDS in the black community.
This year HIV/AIDS turned 25.
In the last quarter century the rate of HIV infections has gone down.
But not for blacks.
People with AIDS are living longer.
But not black people.
HIV/AIDS has gone from a gay white disease to a black epidemic, and all the outrage—the marching and lying in the streets, the carrying of mock coffins, the national headlines and increased federal funding—went cold as more and more blacks got the disease.
We can’t blame this all on racism. Racism is definitely a big part of the problem. Black lives are just not valued as highly as white lives by the press or by the people on Capitol Hill. But there is an additional problem.
Gary Bell is executive director of BEBASHI (Blacks Educating Blacks About Sexual Health Issues), a nonprofit founded in 1985 to respond to the rising incidence of HIV/AIDS in the city’s black community. The agency serves about 15,000 people a year, doing everything from doling out condoms to providing education and counseling.
Bell says he has clients who test positive for HIV and leave his office with no intention of telling the wife, husband, girlfriend or boyfriend.
He’s been attacked on a radio show by listeners who believe HIV/AIDS is a government conspiracy.
He’s had clients ostracized by their families and their communities for being HIV positive.
He got a call from a mother who had a son dying of AIDS at home because he didn’t want anyone in his neighborhood to know.
Too often, Bell says, he runs out of condoms and bus tokens to give to his clients because funding has dried up.
“We act like it isn’t around us,” Bell says. “But this isn’t in left field. It’s right in our community.”
Still, no one deals with it. Not the pastor on Sunday morning. Not the politicians at the community meetings.
Recently Bell called a local radio station with a segment idea, and was told HIV is a downer.
“No one wants to talk about it,” says Bell. “As a result, people think it must not be an issue. That’s what’s killing us.”
It isn’t only Washington D.C. and the media that are ignoring this epidemic. The black community is in denial too. And the combination of these factors is leading to statistics like this.
Blacks make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, but represent more than half of new HIV cases.
Blacks are more than seven times more likely to die from AIDS after being diagnosed with HIV than are whites.
And one third of people infected with the AIDS virus don’t even know it.
Ironically, it is Washington D.C. that is taking the lead that Philly and other communities should follow.
In June, with an estimated 25,000 people infected with HIV, Washington, D.C., announced a plan to test everyone in the city between 14 and 84. the city plans to distribute 80,000 20-minute testing kits to hospitals, schools and health organizations before the end of the year. The goal is to make HIV screening as routine as brushing your teeth.
I’d like to see some white (and black) politicians talking about this. I’d like to hear about some black pastors addressing this. It needs to be a high national priority.
