First, a flashback:
(sfgate.com 3/3/07)
Bono, 46, was invited to tour the Bay Area by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, to help raise awareness of local efforts to educate the public about the disease.
Bono stood alongside Lee, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and Allen Temple Pastor J. Alfred Smith to say he’ll be using his celebrity status to help people in the United States living with AIDS, particularly African Americans, who have contracted the disease at higher rates than other racial and ethnic groups.
[...]
Alameda County declared an AIDS state of emergency in 1999. Men account for most of the cases — 86 percent of the more than 6,800 people with the disease countywide — but the number of cases among women rose steadily from the 1990s through 2003, according to a 2005 AIDS epidemiology report from the Alameda County Public Health Department.
Of the AIDS cases in Alameda County from 1980 to 2005, African Americans accounted for 44 percent, more than any other ethnic or racial group.
Bono drew a parallel between poor countries in the developing world and low-income communities in the United States, saying both feature local communities without resources to address the challenge and individuals overwhelmed by poverty and lack of opportunity.
Dellums said a major problem was the high number of men carrying HIV who are being released from prisons.
“That can be traced back to the fact that we are sending men back into the community as bullets because they don’t know their status,” said Dellums. “Men are coming back HIV-positive.”
Bono, Dellums and Lee also called on black churches to play a stronger role in educating people about the disease and how to protect themselves, even though a number of theologians say some anti-AIDS approaches run counter to Scripture. (source)
Now let’s fast forward to a recent study conducted by the CDC. Here are some of its findings as it relates to Blacks:
The proportion of adults who first had sex before the age of 15 was highest for non-Hispanic black persons (28%) compared with Mexican American persons (14%) and non-Hispanic white persons (14%).
Non-Hispanic black men and women were more likely to have a higher percentage of 15 or more partners in a lifetime (46% and 13%, respectively) than other race or ethnic groups.
Non-Hispanic black men and women had a higher percentage of two or more partners in the past year than other race or ethnic groups, although non-Hispanic black men had a higher percentage than non-Hispanic black women (37% and 19%, respectively).
Only 6% of non-Hispanic black persons abstained from sex until age 21 years and older compared with Mexican American persons (17%) and non-Hispanic white persons (15%).
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Okay, from the top. Here are the disclaimers some folks tend to need.
# Yes, I understand that this study is based on a sample and does not represent all Black people.
# For the racially sensitive, yes I am aware that White people do have sex and can get AIDS as well
# No, I do not believe that all Black folks are sexual deviants.
Okay, let me get to the point here on this one. In all my years discussing the AIDS issue with other folks, I’ve noticed that people tend to fall in on of two categories: Folks who feel that dealing with the disparities within the health industry should be the main focus and folks who feel that dealing with the behaviors that result in things like AIDS or unwanted pregnancies should be the focus. For those of you who have followed this site for a while, it shouldn’t be a big surprise to you that I tend to go with the latter group. While I do believe that disparities DO exist within the health care industry, working to convince folks to make better decisions BEFORE becoming dependent on the health care system is much more effective in my view. Focusing too much on problems within the health care industry subtly tells our kids (and older folks as well) that they will inevitably make bad sexual choices and that big daddy government will be (and should be) right there to take care of them–for life! This perception amongst the unmarried sexually active only gets worse as we place most of the blame on the spread of AIDS on things like poverty, racism and classism. As we are able to get the number of AIDS cases to decline, THEN should we place a greater emphasis on the disparities within the health care system. While folks like Bono is trekking all over the world pushing the belief that AIDS can only be eradicated by heavy government intervention, notice that the words ‘personal responsibility’ tend to be invisible in his schpeel. Here is a little something that I wrote a little while ago on a similar topic.
“We must continue to teach the value of sexual self-control in our community. The reason why half of y’all may have turned your nose up after reading that last sentence is because too few of us are willing to demonstrate it. In a world that is constantly bombarding us with sexual imagery, throwing condoms at our children or telling them not to have sex until marriage is not enough. Virginity until marriage must become a cultural mandate (rite of passage) within our community” (source)
And here is something that I wrote on responsibility:
I have a much better plan, and it only has ONE point: “Stop pushing responsibility on society at large for your lack of sexual self-control.â€
Yes, I am aware that there are people out there who unfortunately get this disease by blood transfusion, but those cases do not make up the majority. This is primarily a sexually-transmitted disease.
We are a culture that prides itself on “telling it like it is“, so to me this very notion is flat out ridiculous.
Note to the “…country’s leading African-American health experts, lawmakers and civil rights leadersâ€: Stop treating the community you claim to represent as a bunch of ignorant fools who don’t don’t know the meaning of the word responsibility (this was written in response to this article).
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June 25th, 2007 at 7:58 am
“ Virginity until marriage must become a cultural mandate (rite of passage) within our community—
Whilst, I feel you on this one Bruh BlackInformant, I think some sort of middle ground is needed; for sex can be very important to a successful marriage.
No sexual intercourse prior to marriage means we end up with situations where couples are buying a pig in a poke.
`
June 25th, 2007 at 10:30 am
NSangoma says:
“No sexual intercourse prior to marriage means we end up with situations where couples are buying a pig in a poke.”
Test driving the car before you purchase it is no guarantee that you won’t get a lemon. While that might not be a good comparable example, my point is clear.
It should begin with us, what we do in our families, how we train our children. It may feel like a fish swimming upstream, against the current today’s society teachings But we CAN train our children to set higher standards and yes virginity until marriage is possible.
I am dealing with a young person now that has never been trained in her home to respect herself. And because she has no self respect she has a serious STD and has spread it to God only knows how many people, some know and some do not know yet that they have been affected.
So…is “test driving” the answer? I think not.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
No sexual intercourse prior to marriage means we end up with situations where couples are buying a pig in a poke.
LOL!
You know, I’m reminded of my admiration of sport films where the unknown coach is assigned to a team that is in desperate need of real leadership. So what does the coach do? He raises the bar of expectancy for these players by not accepting middle ground. It’s usually later in the film where this coach learns that the “pedal to the metal” approach also has to be sensitive to individual needs. Nevertheless, the team learns very quickly that if they are to win future games, they all must be willing to do what it takes to win (getting over personal issues, whining, pain, etc.) Somehow this coach was able to instill in them a desire to be the best.
When I ponder on this situation regarding sexuality and its unwanted byproducts, I oftentimes ask myself “do we have a much higher respect for sports than our own kids?” For years we have tried the middle ground approach in the Black community and we are failing miserably. We have allowed politicians, “leaders”, activists, etc. to tell us in essence “Awww, its okay if you are losing the game, after all most of you are too poor and Black.” On the flip side, I would challenge ANYBODY to visit a basketball court in the inner city and use that same line on the losing team.
Now let’s be honest here, folks are going to slip up and still engage in sexual activity beyond marriage. But if we were to raise the bar on ourselves in this area, those persons who “slipped up” will walk away from that encounter with a level of guilt that will in effect increase the chances that they will not make the same mistake twice. By allowing the middle ground, folks have some assurance that a safety net will be there to take care of the byproducts. The problem here is that we have way too many people who have merged the safety net with their perpetual bad life choices. And of course in order for this to work, you need folks who are willing to model it out.