February 9, 2007
BLACK AND AWARE
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Magic was featured in Black AIDS Day programming |
AIDS kills more black people in the U.S. than any other disease.
For this stark and simple reason, February 7 was designated National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day in 1999. This year, folks across the country organized events to raise awareness of the disease among African Americans, get people tested, and get the government to wake up and do something.
Here in New York, Housing Works sent out its mobile outreach unit to the heart of the Bed-Stuy neighborhood; the predominantly African American and West Indian area is the epicenter of Brooklyn's HIV/AIDS cases. Blustery winds and biting temperatures mostly kept the outreach workers inside their trailer, but halfway through the day they had rapid tested and counseled 14 passers-by. "Black AIDS Awareness Day opens the community's eyes. Many don't go to the doctor or they don't know where to go. We seek them out," says outreach worker Geraldine Davis. Testing is one of the major goals of the Feb. 7 event.
The Harm Reduction Coalition put out a stirring statement in honor of the day, fingering the root causes of inflated HIV rates among blacks: poverty and homelessness, disparities in education and health care and high rates of incarceration in communities of color. "The cumulative and reinforcing impact of these social and political forces create a vortex of vulnerability directly responsible for the current HIV crisis among African Americans," reads their right-on missive.
Throughout the nation, 26 cities with the highest HIV/AIDS rates affecting blacks hosted "Resound the Alarm Town Hall Meetings." (26 were chosen to highlight 26 years of fighting the epidemic.) Local health departments and AIDS Service Organizations worked together under the aegis of the National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day Strategic Leadership Council to organize the events.
Naturally, Housing Works couldn't let an opportunity to lobby slip by. Working with the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC), we organized a phone blitz to demand action from Congress on key items in the 2007 federal budget to fight AIDS in black America. Callers got the 411 during three teach-ins (that included presenters from CHAMP and the National AIDS Housing Coalition), where they learned about prevention in prison, housing, the Early Treatment for HIV Act, and NMAC's five-point action plan.
Even couch potatoes couldn't escape the epidemic on the 7th. HBO honored the day with a broadcast in several hard-hit cities of Queen Latifah's movie Life Support, a drama about a black woman living with HIV. BET ran a spate of HIV/AIDS programming for its young African-American audience, including the show Sex, Myths and the Real Deal, featuring stars like MC Lyte, Magic Johnson and Bow Wow (Yippee Yo, Yippee Yea!).