“AIDS has been allowed to stalk and murder Black America like a serial killer because we have been a compliant victim, submitting through inaction. It is now time for us to fight AIDS like the major civil rights issue it is…” The Rev. Jesse Jackson.
I still remember when Oprah Winfrey had her famous show about black men living on the down low back in 2004. The show featured J. L. King, a man who made millions telling a story about men secretly having sex with men while pretending to live a seemingly normal, heterosexual life. Like the rest of the country, I was shocked by what Mr. King said, and I’ve seen a tremendous amount of evidence that this counter culture does indeed exist.
I loved the fact that Oprah helped to make all of us aware of what was going on in our community. She saved a lot of lives in the process. But the flip side of sounding the alarm bell is that some of us can become excessively alarmed, and perhaps even a bit paranoid. I argue that it was these episodes of the Oprah Winfrey Show which led to a form of sexual McCarthyism in black America.
After the infamous Oprah episodes, every black woman in America was on code red high alert, fueling a tiny war on sexual terror – any brother caught with a potted plant in his living room was suddenly suspect. They weren’t hunting down black men who sleep with hundreds of women without going to the doctor. Instead, they were looking for the men who were either gay or bi-sexual, as if being in this group somehow makes you into a tragic and disgusting abomination of both God and all mankind. If only you could be like the pastor who sleeps with every woman in the church, or the professional athlete who sleeps with three women a week – perhaps then, some black women might be able to forgive you. But being gay or bi-sexual, for some reason, is probably the worst crime a black man can possibly ever commit.
One cannot deny that the gay community has played a role in the rapid-fire transmission of HIV/AIDS in the black community. AIDS is now the number one killer of black women between the ages of 25 and 44, and many of these women have been killed by men living a double life. Even worse is the fact that many of these cases are under-reported by families who are ashamed, and AIDS is rarely listed as an official cause of death in an autopsy. But there is a deeper story to be told, one in which we are killing ourselves through ignorance, denial and scapegoating.
Roughly 48% of all black women and 39% of all black men are infected with genital herpes. Also, African Americans have eight times more chlamydia, and 18 times the level of gonorrhea relative to white Americans. Much of this infection takes place not because a man got married without telling his wife about his boyfriend. But rather, it is because we’re not nearly as suspicious as we should be of our own heterosexual behavior.
The examples in which heterosexuals are harming one another are numerous. One of our most widely-read stories on Your Black World was an article that showed a link between oral sex and throat cancer. Most people don’t use a condom when they have oral sex, and it’s hard to imagine how “wrapping it up” during vaginal intercourse makes a person feel that it might be OK to put infected genitalia in your mouth. Please don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about; grown folks are in the room.
There is also the idea that sex is a simple, uncomplicated, source of personal gratification, with the promotion of concepts like “cuffing season,” where a woman is to find a man so she can “cuff” him for the winter and then release him like an animal into the wild. I’m sure that much of this cuffing takes place without anyone providing documentation about their HIV, Gonorrhea or Chlamydia status: All that matters is that “he’s fine as hayell.”
We also have to jump on the brothers who’ve been taught to believe that a man should use his sex organs at every available opportunity. Somehow, our measures of manhood and masculinity have been warped by Lil Wayne videos and images of rappers bragging about how many hundreds of women they slept with last year. The rule appears to be simple: If she’s fine, you hit it. Perhaps that rule should be changed. It doesn’t help that far too many of the “playa playas” in our community haven’t been to the doctor in the last five years, yet they never run short of women willing to enjoy their well-traveled penises without asking too many questions.
Next, our community must challenge the prison industrial complex and the mass incarceration of black men. Many HIV infections can be traced directly back to the prison system, and it should infuriate all of us that so many black men are being locked away for even the smallest crimes. If our men are going to be locked up, prisons should be confronted about looking the other way when inmates are raped. Prison rape should no longer be a meaningless punchline; people are dying because of it.
Another inconvenient truth about African Americans and HIV is that many of us are not getting married. I am not one to judge, for this is not a bible-thumping convention. Marriage is hard, divorce rates are high, so I don’t blame anyone for not getting married. But this reality must be considered when thinking about how we live our lives.
One reality about our not getting married is that single people tend to have far more sex partners than those who are married. The woman who might be devoted to one man during marriage may end up sleeping with five guys per year if she’s single (especially if she buys into concepts like “cuffing season”). Another paradigm of thought might be necessary to determine how African Americans living “the single life” can manage their sexuality with productive and responsible choices. Again, I’m not passing judgment, I’m just sayin……
The bottom line is that when it comes to the fight against HIV/AIDS, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and whatever horrible little diseases are being brewed up right now, education is the key. Personal awareness starts by all of us getting tested (for everything) and making sure that our partners are tested as well. Demonizing the gay community is not going to solve the problem, for it is likely our community’s marginalization of gay men that leads many of them to live life in the shadows. Finally, we must all remember that our bodies are precious possessions that should not be shared with any person with a nice butt, a cute smile or a little bit of money. Sleeping with someone may cost you your life, so perhaps its time for all of us to sober up and take a cold shower.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.
