Housing Works Update: Where Are All the Black Gay Men?
23 Feb
This article from Housing Works’ Weekly Update raises similar issues I raised in my op-ed for The Defenders Online about HIV/AIDS in the Black community, and the silence around Black gay men.
Two weeks ago individuals and organizations across the nation marked National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Judging by many of the articles, press releases and events commemorating the day, however, you might never guess that the highest percentage of new HIV infections in 2006 was among black gay men.
Why, even on a day dedicated to black AIDS awareness, do black gay men remain a footnote?
“It’s symptomatic of the problem we face of ridding our community of HIV in order to break the back of the epidemic,” said Ernest Hopkins, policy director of the Black Gay Advocacy Coalition. “The most heavily impacted population by percentages is black gay men. If you want to talk about this epidemic you have to start there, and then move very quickly to black women, or you’re not doing your job.” Read the rest of the article here:
Tags: black gay men, black homophobes, hiv/aids, homophobia
The best way and most effective way to prevent
aids is to stop the sin of homosexuality and fornication. These are sins.
Hotep! Interesting article. I cross-posted it on our groupsite dedicated to HIV/AIDS Awareness on a 365/24/7 basis.
peace, Villager
Well, someone’s global depopulation scheme seems to be working: The People’s Republic of China (the world’s most populous country) recently (and probably very reluctantly) reported that AIDS became its deadliest infectious disease last year. I wonder who will eventually ask where all the Chinese gay men are; neither those silent Black gay men nor people like the laughable and anonymous ‘ironsword’ …
White gay men realized way back in the 1980s that no one was going to acknowledge them without a fight. So they kicked in the door. Remember the group ACT-UP?
Why are black gay men, 20 years later, thinking that people are going to invite them to the table without a fight? That is magical thinking. Black gay men are going to have to kick the doors in, like the white gay guys did back in the 1980s and 1990s.
That expression, ‘silence = death’, is just as true for black gay men now as it was for white gay men back in the day.
I really don’t know how to say this so I’ll just say it.
Phill Wilson, the founder/CEO of the Black AIDS Institute, is a HIV-positive black gay man. Wilson is a pioneer black gay AIDS activist and I have never heard anything bad about him or his organization. I’m wondering, however, why has he been so reluctant to speak up more forcefully about the HIV/AIDS epidemic as it impacts Black Gay Men?
I remember the “hot, horny and healthy” ‘safe(r) sex’ workshops Wilson did with black gay men years ago all over the country. I attended one of those workshops. Perhaps he feels black gay men should know how to have safe(r) sex and if we get infected with HIV/AIDS it’s our own fault.
Wilson is definitely a black gay hero. But he could do more to advance the cause of black gay men. We need love, too.