12.01.2004
A lot has changed since last year. And yet so much still remains the same. HIV is still on the rise in our community and it seems it has no intentions of slowing down, even with J. L. King’s scare tactics.
Nonsense aside the facts cannot be denied:
• AIDS is the #1 killer of Black people ages 24-44 — not drugs or cancer or violence: AIDS!
• Black women are 23 times more likely to contract HIV than White women.
• Black women account for 72% of new HIV/AIDS cases among women in the U.S.
• Even though Black people represent 12% of the U.S. population, we represent 54% of all new HIV/AIDS cases.
• Black youth ages 13 to 24 represent 56% of the reported HIV cases among adolescents.
• 25% of all those who are HIV-positive do not know that they are positive.
• 185,000 African Americans have died so far from AIDS.
It amazes me how sexually active people are and how unaware or unconcerned many are when it comes to sexually transmitted diseases. Just the other week after learning my little brother had recently engaged in unprotected sex I had to sit him down and stress how necessary it is for him to use protection—but more so, ask questions. Questions he may be too embarrassed to ask but ones that just might save his life. Like so many his concerns were placed more on pregnancy than HIV, a concern, in my opinion that’s causing such an influx in recent cases. There is only one birth control that can help prevent HIV, and it is not the pill or a diaphragm.
I’ve had two friends fall ill this year. Both scared the hell out of me. Thankfully both recovered. But not a day goes by that I do not think of those phone calls and remember instantly how completely helpless I felt.
HIV and AIDS are real people. As real as the sex-filled days and nights that creates it. Protect yourself, because I don’t want to lose any of you anytime soon. Believe that.
