The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

According to this article, talking about sex within the Black community is just horrifying…yikes!

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“…the silence is still loud and the numbers are worse. Blacks now account for nearly half of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses and contract AIDS at a rate 10 times that of whites. Sixty-four percent of all American women living with HIV/AIDS are black. AIDS is the leading cause of death for black women, 25 to 34.

And eight years later, Gaye’s advice still haunts. Because while poverty plays a role in those ghastly numbers, while access to health care and lack of information are factors, who can deny that the main reason for this plague is the silence, the closed-mouth social conservatism, the priggish moral rectitude, of a people still ill at ease discussing sexuality, homosexuality, drug use and other realities? Instead, we mouth piety, prayers and platitudes while the world burns down around us.”

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“Robertson (an author who is writing a book on AIDS in the Black community) has gathered an eclectic cross section of black America. Some you know (Patti Labelle, Mo’Nique, Jocelyn Elders), most you’ve never heard of. They are preachers, politicians, professors, writers, activists and one porn star. But there are no hip-hop artists despite, Robertson says, his best efforts to recruit them. The unwillingness of those icons of loud and lusty machismo to speak about AIDS speaks volumes about the conflictedness of black America. Sex and violence they can talk about, but AIDS cows them to silence.

The book, Robertson says, is an effort at breaking that silence. “It was an opportunity for black folks to sound off and engage in dialogue that would indicate to the rest of society that we are concerned.” (more…)

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Talking about sex in a Western society is an everyday reality. Kids as young as 4 can tell you “how it all works” these days with very little assistance from parents. The problem here is instilling R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y instead of accepting the Liberal belief that AIDS in the Black community is linked to poverty, which is linked to racism, which is linked to slavery (dizzying, isn’t it?).

Awwww nevermind! I have talked about this issue many times already.