No it wasn't a pair of shoes, some overpriced jeans, a new phone or the latest gaming console. I bought a subscription to the New York Times.
I often find myself reading the Washington Post or brief AP stories to get my latest dose of what's happening in the world, God forbid I would have to go to CNN or Fox, but I wanted a more sophisticated channel to get my news.
Since the New York Times paywall limits the number of articles you can read a month, I rarely go on the site anymore. However I felt like investing in myself; so I bought it, and today I came across this story:
Poor Black and Hispanic Men Are the Face of H.I.V.
A heart wrenching piece written by Donald G. McNeil Jr., a roughly 60 year-old white Berkeley grad, who's covered health epidemics virtually his entire career at the Times since joining the staff in 1976.
Then it hit me. Where is OUR voice?
Why did it take the New York Times, not only to cover this, but make it the LEADING story in their health section to get anyone to pay attention. Where are our leaders, who are black, in and outside the gay community?
Has anyone in our community even read it? Is anyone out there talking about it?
Its almost like we ignore HIV and pretend like this isn't happening. We talk about disclosure and prevention, but ignore the importance of helping people after they are positive.
I discussed HIV on World AIDS day here on my blog by talking about three different guys that brought me out of fearing the virus to understanding it and respecting people living with it. One who shared his own story of tragedy and triumph living with it, another that lied about having it and one that made me comfortable with being exposed to it romantically.
Its just sad that after scrolling through site after site targeted our demographic, and blog after blog, (WRITTEN AND EDITED BY US I might add) we love to discuss sex, but fail to address HIV in a humane way. I don't mean posting scary statistics about it or asking the lame "are you ok with someone with HIV?" question. As gay black men, we HAVE to be comfortable with it because it impacts so many of us and we are fools to act like it doesn't.
I just would like to see some maturity in covering the subject on all fronts in the black community and it has to start with us.
If we don't care about another and love ourselves enough to make a difference, no one else will.
- CGN
I think we don't address because we assume someone else will do it. Not to mention of all these deadly diseases out there HIV/AIDS are the ones that have a "you did it to yourself" negative connotation on it.
ReplyDeletewww.anorexicescapades.com
www.anorexicescapades.com
Its so sad because we will walk for breast cancer since that's a "thing", feel bad for somebody with diabetes because we see someone in our family shooting up insulin, but judge some that looks just like us for something that may or may not have been in their control. At the end of the day, we're all human.
Delete