Larry Bryant

"Is G.O.P. the new Black?" Really?

According to Apostle Claver Kamau-Imani, Chairman and Executive Director of RagingElepants.org, this question is a no-brainer. According to the Apostle, who proclaims to be "Leading America's 2nd Emancipation", him and his followers are:

Dedicated to advance the cause of conservatism-libertarianism by growing the ranks of conservative voters through RACIAL DIVERSITY. We envision a rejuvenation of conservatism by seeing more Americans of color join the movement.

Sounds great! Especially when you are reminded quite boldly through his website and billboards throughout the predominantly Black and poor communities of south Houston that "Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican!" Although more recent examples of Black conservative Republicans like Clarence Thomas, Alan Keyes, Michael Steele, and Herman Cain may leave an immediately bitter taste.

So, while engaging in discussion on this "Raging" topic at the 2011 incarnation of the 'water-cooler' (Facebook), it made me wonder out loud: What is the voting and political image of Black America?

I mean, after all, we have a Black President. He is a Democrat. Therefore Black people are Democrats, right? Maybe. However if African Americans only voted (in historic fashion, by the way) for Barack Obama because he is the 'Black guy', isn't it fair to assume that an equally articulate, genuinely intelligent, self-aware candidate from the right who can make a jump shot on ESPN could make a similar impression? Are we as a Black community defined by our options or are we defining the characteristics of those who run for office? Or are we attracted to the better marketed candidate? A major factor in Obama's rise popularity and elected office and appeal is not only in the way he speaks, his intellectualism, and his cross-over charm. It's most importantly due to his campaign's ability to market and package those qualities in a fresh and exciting way to a younger, more diverse audience. But does that mean Black people would never vote for the same candidate if he were Republican? 

Historically it seems both parties have gone through immense changes that have perception, at least, of doing a 180 degree turn. From its founding in 1854, the Republican Party was the anti-slavery party. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, wrote the Emancipation Proclamation and freed the slaves. And Dr. King, as well as most leading Blacks of his time were aligned with the Republican Party for primarily these reasons.

The Democrats fought to keep Blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize Black people throughout the South. The Democrats also fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s.

How times have changed.

So who are we today? What is our political persona and how are we seen by those running for state and Federal office? Is the Black community too diversely defined to narrow it to clarify the 'Black vote'? It seems with issues connected to major and deadly disparities in education, employment, incarceration, and health as defined by being Black in America, neither party has done a particularly good job. This includes HIV & AIDS funding, prevention, care, and education.

Despite the serious play for votes from the Black community from both sides of the campaign aisle - Michelle Bachman has said that she would be a better President for Black people than our Black President - however not serious enough when it comes to actually policy change. 

Again it comes back to who we are and what role we as a Black community - diverse in Faith, economics, education, and culture - can do to define the characteristics of the candidate that seeks our votes. Do we care? Can that influence exist? Or are we spread too thin because of our diversity and experience?

I am curious to hear your thoughts.

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray (left) greets Dr. Greg Pappas.

Washington D.C. Department Health HIV & AIDS, Hepatitis, STD, and TB Administration (HAHSTA) Director Dr. Gregory Pappas recently submitted an opinion piece to the Washington Blade titled 'Fighting For An HIV-free future'. Though using the words "tremendous" and "exciting" to describe the city's recent work in addressing what the Center's For Disease Control has termed as "severe and generalized epidemic", it is clear that future will not arrive without a comprehensive, and city-wide approach with effective and measurable goals and set and stated accountability to achieve those goals.

Close to 900 District residents living with HIV & AIDS currently sit on a growing housing wait list that has grown exponentially in the last 3 years. According to the National AIDS Housing Coalition, "Major studies have proven that providing housing for poor people living with HIV & AIDS dramatically improves health outcomes." However, structural interventions including housing are completely ignored when developing effective prevention and care strategies. This blatant disregard extends to the approximately 27,000 households waiting for low-income housing in the city, many of whom fit the criteria for populations most at risk.

Secondly, despite growing STD and HIV infections among the District's youth, city officials are stubbornly reluctant to implement comprehensive sex & sexuality education in all school aged settings. Again, studies show these programs, when properly presented by adequately trained and willing educators, lower new infections and early births, and lessen the violence aimed at queer and questioning youth. Perhaps not implementing a life-protecting and life-saving measure among the 'next' population is a political decision, which also begs the question: Why are we allowing politicians to make smart public health decisions when we know they can't?

I challenge Dr. Pappas, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and his D.C. HIV & AIDS Commission appointees to make the fundamental changes necessary to heal the societal wounds that consistently fuel the HIV & AIDS epidemic in the District. If we are not acknowledging the roles that poverty, education, joblessness, homophobia, and sexual violence play in cementing those health disparities - particularly among people of color - we will continue this perpetual march. These changes in antiquated policies and hurtful ideology would prove to be cost effective and, more importantly, save current and future lives.

There has also been the strategy of putting on a 'good face' for the city - and the country, for that matter - when it comes to fighting AIDS. You know, if we profusely thank our leaders, including President Barack Obama, for the fractions of the needed whole of support, funding, and strategies dedicated the priority AIDS issues, then they will smile on us and validate our scheduled lunch dates on the Hill. In other words, if we talk about all good things we have, um, accomplished and ignore all that we haven't, we will better ensure the re-election of our good friends.

Bullshit!

First of all, the President will not win or lose the election based solely on his record on AIDS, and that's a shame. If his office truly felt that urgency, perhaps we would finally receive answers from his office that would end the AIDS Drug Assistance Program crisis currently holding about 8500 people hostage on a expanding wait list. It is the warnings from Dr. Pappas, as well as other national AIDS policy experts, about the dark forces seeking to prevent the President's re-election by using any and all tools to deconstruct his 2012 edition of the Hope Machine.

Let's be clear, they are telling people living with HIV & AIDS, their loved ones, and allies that we should not add to those tools by challenging him to keep his promises. Individuals who are living, and dying, on wait lists and in waiting rooms across the country should... wait some more. Until after next year's election. And then what? Obviously poor people's issues - particularly poor people with AIDS - are not important enough to campaign publicly for.

To me, this is a pure form of disrespect to country's Chief Officer, especially as he seeks to add four more years to his historic first term. We should lob softballs to him and his office to knock out the park to inflate his home run count. Pad his stats like it's the closing minutes of a meaningless basketball game. Fuck the triple-double, guys! Let's get the victory to the over 1.6 million people living with HIV & AIDS by doing the hard work of finishing what we started. (You see where the triple-double got LeBron and the Heat.) 

Back in the D.C. government, the city's leaders are in full party planning mode, preparing our best linen and silver for global guests arriving to break bread at next summer's International AIDS Conference. Smoothing out all the kinks to our public presence while doing little or nothing of substance to demonstrate measurable change in the American city with an HIV rate ten times above the national average - highest in the country and comparable to the rates in sub-Saharan African countries.

An "HIV- Free Future" is possible if we actually believe we can make it happen. Does Dr. Pappas, Mayor Gray, and President Obama believe it can happen and are they doing all that it takes to make it happen?

Black men - in fact, ALL men - should understand that on Thursday, March 10, National Women and Girls HIV & AIDS Awareness Day is as much about us as it is about women and girls.

'In 2009, nearly a quarter of diagnoses of HIV infection in the United States were among women and girls aged 13 years and older. Additionally, almost 184,000 women and adolescent girls were living with HIV at the end of 2008. More than 101,000 women and girls with AIDS have died since the epidemic began.

Women and girls of color--especially black women and girls--bear a disproportionately heavy burden of HIV infection. In 2009, for adult and adolescent females, the rate of diagnoses of HIV infection for black females was nearly 20 times as high as the rate for white females and approximately 4 times as high as the rate for Hispanic/Latino females. The reason women of color are more severely burdened by HIV and AIDS are not directly related to race or ethnicity, but rather to some of the barriers faced by many in these communities across the country.'
- from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website.

The CDC goes on to describe 'barriers' as a set of social determinants or 'circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work, and age'. Also health outcomes or disparities evolved by living in an environment that is 'shaped by a wider set of forces: economics, social policies, and politics'.

Another startling statistic is that 85% of new HIV infections among American women are from infected male partners. Let me say that again...

Eighty-Five per cent of new HIV infections among American women are from men who are HIV positive.

This tragic realization has to placed right at the feet of the male population. We have not lived up to our roles in relationships, family, and community nearly as much as we should or need. Straight, bi-sexual, gay, undecided, or undeclared... We have denounced and denied responsibility and accountability at almost every opportunity and, sadly, the numbers bear it out.

Let's be real also... These numbers don't tell us the half of it- not even close. The cases of rape or physical and sexual abuse, domestic or otherwise, is almost as common as picking up dinner at a drive-through. The steady rise of new HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) infections and early pregnancies among girls, especially in South, is not measured in these numbers.

I look at these statistics and see myself. I am a heterosexual Black man living with HIV since 1986 and I have certainly kicked myself in the ass more times than I can remember. There are no apologies that can completely erase mistakes in judgment or decision making that hurt others and/or put individuals at risk.

I look at these statistics and see my son, Dominique, and what role he plays in lives of the people he meets and has relationships with. Or better yet, the role he continues to play in life of his son, Taylor.

I see the faces of the men, young and old, I know in my Washington D.C. neighborhoods as well as similar neighborhoods across the country. Are we willing to define ourselves at a higher standard for those around us? Are we willing to acknowledge and accept our flaws and inconsistencies and work to improve our standing? Are we willing to fight for the lives of those closest to us as well as those most trusting - and forgiving - of us?

I would like to see more men - straight men, in particular - standing up to be more visible, vocal, and involved with rebuilding and repairing our role in addressing the HIV epidemic among women and girls including:

• Elected officials - President Obama, Congressional Members, and city and state leaders - and the commissions and committees they convene to address HIV & AIDS and related issues.
• Professional athletes and entertainers - many of whom reside in the demographic that is most visible in U.S. new HIV infections;
• Male clergy, pastors, and other Faith leaders still serve as the spine and foundation of most communities and most times represent the polar opposites of the HIV & AIDS stigma dynamic;
• Male service providers, health care workers, board members, and executive directors - organizationally, leadership and mentoring is top down and vice versa;
  
• My Facebook (male) friends, and you guys know who you are!

The history of the HIV & AIDS epidemic in the United States has always included us all - even though there are some who seem to want to claim ownership as if 'AIDS' was trademarked and incorporated, while others throw blame like hand grenades into a crowded church. Effective and healing outcomes can be assured only if we are using each other as support and not target practice.

As men we must recognize this National Women and Girls HIV & AIDS Awareness Day as the day we become actively involved in the solutions that heal us all. None of us can do it alone.

"We need a new kind of black leadership, new kinds of black organizations and associations that can bring power and pressure to bear on the powers that be."

- Cornel West

 

The concept of Black AIDS Awareness Day - any HIV & AIDS awareness day for that matter - has always left me a little conflicted. It just seems that 30 years into an epidemic that has taken the lives of about a quarter million Black Americans, 'awareness' seems to be a weak strategy in addressing the social and historical factors that contribute to Black AIDS. In fact, it seems that AIDS has done as much as any phenomenon to underscore the divisiveness and internal segregation of the Black community at large.

 

Faith leaders in the Black community openly and freely espouse homophobia and stigma to define their mission and congregation. Our Black elected officials - particularly the men - are completely invisible when it comes to leadership of any kind on any level citing HIV & AIDS as "too controversial" a topic. This exact sentiment seems to be the rationale of our national organizations founded on defending and protecting the civil rights and social justice of people of color - National Association of the Advancement of Colored People, 100 Black Men of America, National Urban League, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, among others. It seems that when non-profits and social justice organizations begin making advocacy decisions based on publicity conscious reasons we have not only lost our way, we've lost our collective soul.

 

Which brings us to the Black AIDS community.

 

From my admittedly cynical and jaded perspective, we in Black AIDS community are failing ourselves. We take distinct sides when articulating solutions that would support education, prevention, and care of those most affected and marginalized, throwing others under the bus in the process. Far too often I find Black people living with HIV & AIDS essentially 'pimped out' to gain grants or populate glossy media campaigns and far too few of those same individuals left out of meaningful opportunities to change policy or politics.

 

In many cases, Black people are best seen but not heard when it comes to HIV & AIDS advocacy and activism. In many Southern states, HIV positive individuals are still threatened and intimidated or 'strongly discouraged' not to speak out on behalf of themselves or others falling victim to discriminatory policies. Many of these influences come from executive directors of organizations and even state officials effectively creating and "AIDS plantation" (real-life description of the San Antonio, Texas AIDS community).

 

Truth is, it really is not new or surprising that the dynamic still exists (not just in the South, by the way) where White people are telling Black and Brown people how to live.

 

The oppression and suppression of Black faces and voices is also exhibited by Black organization heads seeking to keep clients and staff 'controlled' in the name of getting along and going along. I have lost count of the number of threats of program de-funding, losing a seat on a planning body, denial of HIV & AIDS services, or being fired if one was found or heard being involved in advocacy and activism - including here in D.C., where the AIDS cliques are sharply defined.

 

Former Bill Clinton Presidential Campaign Advisor and AIDS Activist Mario Cooper wrote in 2006:

 

"What is stopping us from taking the streets and disrupting business as usual to sound the alarm about Black AIDS? We know we are capable of fighting for our rights, facing down water hoses and police dogs, even marching into Capitol buildings. What is it about HIV & AIDS that holds us back?"

 

What is holding us back? What is preventing us communicating beyond the AIDS community to the whole Black community in building our networks, building our advocacy, and building toward positive measureable outcomes?

 

Maybe another more pointed question is are our leaders in the AIDS community - Black leaders - willing to lay caution to the wind and demonstrate - and I mean demonstrate - a unified front representing the entire Black community's fight to end the HIV & AIDS epidemic and the stigma associated with it? With Black individuals in the AIDS community with hefty, well-titled positions - Frank Oldham (executive director, National Association of People with AIDS), Marjorie Hill (executive director, Gay Men's Health Crisis), Patrick Packer (executive director, Southern AIDS Coalition), and Ernest Hopkins (chair, CAEAR Coalition) for starters - shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm with the likes of 'traditional' heads from the aforementioned NAACP, SCLC, as well as civic and social leaders, Faith community, etc., I think a significant message would be sent across the nation if not around the world.

 

We have templates of community, social, and civil action passed down to us through generations and history that we seem all too comfortable to dismiss as just that - history. Perhaps we are looking in the wrong direction for our leaders in the Black community. Perhaps it is not up to us to wait for leadership, but to become the leadership. Challenge our so-called "best and brightest" to move or get out of the way.

 

"When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots."

- Cornel West

 

It seems that when it comes to Black AIDS, conflicted is where we all are. Now what do we do?

 

Mr. President --

 

I have been following you since your historic election with clear eyes.

 

I am proud of the achievements since your first day in office that point toward ending the HIV & AIDS epidemic in the United States; appointments of Office of National AIDS Policy staff, lifting the HIV Travel Ban, release of the first National HIV & AIDS Strategy, the makeover of the President's Advisory Council on HIV & AIDS, are among them. However, I am mindful of all that remains to be done.

 

I know that there are some frustrated with your administrations less than urgent pace when it comes to HIV & AIDS related issues. There are also some who are more concerned about their own titles and lunch dates to speak openly - if at all - of your inconsistent attention to fund and implement life saving and life preserving interventions. I do know that there are many - many who voted for your Hope - who are languishing perilously close to despair and death, desperate for your follow through.

 

Many have made much about the outcome of this election and what it means for your re-election chances. There has even been much made about the made-for-FOX-News monster called the Tea Party with (the head of Sarah Palin) roaming the countryside and beating unsuspecting incumbents into submission.

 

The truth is, people living with HIV & AIDS need you now and we need you more than ever. We need you to assert yourself and those who carry your torch in Congress (i.e. Pelosi, Reid). I need you to get in to this game.

 

None of us thought this would be easy, despite your decisive and overwhelming ascension to the Executive Office. Changing or reversing policy and politics that have contributed, directly or indirectly, to the over 30,000 HIV & AIDS related U.S. deaths will be hard. Trust me, we have the quilt panels, coffins, and body bags to show for it.

 

The fight to urgently address HIV & AIDS education, prevention, care and services for many of us have been as critical, if not more so, than any war overseas, the national economy, or 'saving' our financial institutions. And if you were as serious and committed as you were during your campaign two years ago about ending the circular rhetoric around a preventable and treatable disease, those of us living with HIV & AIDS would also feel bailed out.

 

We need to see and feel your leadership during this midterm election - not just the contemplative, thoughtful, and patient Chief Executive. We need you to see and hear the decisiveness you aimed at the auto industry and with following through on bringing our troops home. We who are living and dying with HIV & AIDS, those who are suffering through the deadly stigma, ignorance, and discrimination need your bold and "ambitious" leadership to overcome the bigotry, racism, and homophobia that consistently strangles the life out of us. I need your visible and vocal leadership to demand accountability - not just buy-in or collaboration - from national and community HIV & AIDS organizations who are nearly criminal in this act of public anonymity and private snobbery toward people with AIDS passionately fighting for their lives. Criminal in the fact that many of these organizations tout their roots in being the "trusted independent voice of people living with HIV" on many levels.

 

If that apathy and deconstructive strategies persist, we all lose. I need you in the game.

 

One game plan that boldly announces your commitment to urgent action is to commit $126 million to ending the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) waiting lists across the country. Currently, about 3500 individuals sit helpless - most of whom reside in southern states, are people of color, and under or uninsured - only moving up on various wait lists when someone dies. At the current rate, the number could expand to almost 5000 by year's end, giving many of us a clue to what will be on many Christmas lists. This commitment should also come in the form of urging members of congress to support saving the lives of their constituents, their families, their neighbors, their loved ones. I need you in the game.

 

You didn't run for president to be remembered and measured by your popularity or marketability. You didn't run for president as part of a slick public relations campaign by BET or MTV to get young people to buy 'Rock The Vote' t-shirts either. As I remember - and as I consistently reminded by the many emails you send me - you believed in a simple idea; "that each and every one of us, working together, has the power to move this country forward. We believed that this was the moment to solve the challenges that the country had ignored for far too long".

 

The preventable and treatable HIV & AIDS epidemic in this country and around the world has gone on far too long and has taken far too many of us in the process. We cannot continue to be ignored on wait lists and in waiting rooms. Mr. President, you cannot continue to ignore those of us who die spiritual, emotional, social, and personal deaths long before the physical one. We need you to commit to your own ambitious goals when entering office and allow implementation of the National HIV & AIDS Strategy to follow your lead and leave us empty and reaching toward misplaced trust in your visions.

 

So, for the next three weeks, the fight at the polls will continue. They will continue to divide us; they will continue to define us. Above it all I need your commitment. And I need your help to get your friends and neighbors involved.

 

If you demonstrate this visible and vocal leadership toward ending this epidemic, the 3500 you save by committing $126 million to the ADAP crisis will become 7000. And our AIDS Vote 2012 campaign will have twice as many supporters in the game who will make significant contributions to grassroots advocacy and activism that may have a role to the political process, turning out many more at the polls. 

 

If we meet this test - if you, like me, believe that ending this epidemic is not a spectator sport - we will not just end HIV & AIDS. In the years that come, we can begin to realize the changes we are ultimately seeking - poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, homelessness - and reclaim the American dream for this generation.

 

Thank you for getting back in the game,

 

Larry Bryant

After a powerful speech by Waheedah Shabazz-El representing the U.S. Positive Womens' Network on 'Human Rights as a Conscious Achievement', the 2010 International AIDS Conference officially passed the baton to Washington D.C., site of the the 2012 conference. Before the U.S. & D.C. Community Partners accepted the IAC Globe, I addressed the audience.

Good afternoon. My name is Larry Bryant and I am a native Washingtonian. I am an African American, heterosexual, and HIV positive since 1986.

I am proud to call home the next city and country that will host the 2012 International AIDS Conference. I am proud that my President, Barack Obama, signed a historic this year that lifted entry restrictions allowing people living with HIV & AIDS to enter the U.S. However, that is not enough - not by a long shot.

Unless unrestricted to all, eliminating bans which are born from fear, ignorance, and discrimination then we have accomplished nothing. Ending the travel ban was supposed to be a major step in destroying the stigma engulfing individuals around the world infected and affected by HIV & AIDS. All we have done is shifted it to other marginalized and criminalized communities: sex workers, drug users, and ex-offenders. This only widens the gap between respect and reason. This ban is not just misguided, but sinister and stupid.

Mr. President and the U.S. Government, YOU must end the ban on allowing international sex workers, drug users, and ex-offenders to enter the country now.

 

IF YOU DO NOT END THE BAN, WE WILL SHAME YOU AT THE 2012

INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE.

My hometown of D.C. has an extraordinary opportunity as host city for the next International AIDS Conference. As the stage and backdrop of the U.S. epidemic and its response, we have a unique and challenging task to set a global standard. Before that can happen, however, the District of Columbia, currently led by Mayor Adrian Fenty has a severe mess of an epidemic to address. If you have visited the Washington D.C. booth here in Vienna in the exhibition area, you have seen the images and bright shiny faces of middle class D.C. strolling across the National Mall. Those images are in sharp contrast to the D.C. I know and call home.

 

Devastating poverty, rising living and survival costs, and underfunded, under resourced, and overwhelmed community based organizations have contributed to an HIV avalanche of epic proportions:

• 3% of all of D.C. residents or 20,000 individuals are HIV infected (75% are African American)
• severely reduced funding has either cut or eliminated prevention, education, care and services to women, young people, drug users, and the mentally ill,
• also, over 700 D.C. residents living with AIDS are on waiting lists for safe and supportive housing.
  

 

How dare we in the Nation's Capital - Capital of the Free World - allow those most

marginalized and most in need to go without? What kind of example does that set for us and for all? Mayor Fenty and our city's leaders must do better.

 

MAYOR FENTY, IF YOU DON'T IMPLEMENT A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO END D.C.'S HIV & AIDS EPIDEMIC, AT THE 2012 INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE WE WILL SHAME YOU.

 

I am also proud to represent the United States, which has one of the planets most diverse populations. We are a tapestry woven through over 200 years of perseverance, passion, and persistence. Yet despite our history - or maybe because of it - we allow social justice issues to drive wedges between us. Racism and homophobia, particularly in the South, are almost an acceptable and encouraged norm. Sexual violence, violence against women, girls, and transgendered individuals go unseen and unheard. Inequities and education, criminalization, and access lead to the disparities in health, resources, and hope.

 

These deficits must be meaningfully addressed if we are to truly end this epidemic. The Obama National HIV & AIDS Strategy must be more ambitious. Right now, over 2500 individuals wait for life extending and life saving medications across the country that they cannot afford. At this rate, many will die even before the National HIV AIDS Strategy is implemented. We must fully fund and end the AIDS drug waiting lists once and for all. We must also implement a plan to improve access to quality care, particularly in rural areas.

 

PRESIDENT OBAMA IF YOU DO NOT SET TRULY AMBITIOUS GOALS FOR YOUR NATIONAL HIV & AIDS STRATEGY AND IMPLEMENTATION PLAN, WE WILL SHAME YOU AT THE 2012 INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE IN YOUR BACKYARD.

We as a community have plenty to do to prepare for 2012 in D.C. and assuring the 'delivery of accountability'. I look forward to getting started today. Thank you.

During the White House Meeting on Black Men and HIV (June 2, 2010), there were unfortunately few moments of clarity during the four hour discussion. The meeting, which featured participation from advocates, activists, and health professionals from across the country, seemed to flirt with purposeful and meaningful dialogue around the effects of racism, homophobia, and Faith on the HIV & AIDS epidemic among Black men. Seemingly reluctant or hesitant - or worse, disconnected - experts and professionals from the White House, Department of Health & Human Services, Center for Disease Control, Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of Prisons, and the DC Health Department didn't even say the word 'RACISM' until David Malebranche from Emory University dropped the "R" bomb more than two hours into the meeting.





















David Malebranche (left) and Rev. Edwin Saunders

When contemplating strategies, the mark is opportunity is often missed when considering the overall broken societal structure that puts men - Black and Latino, in particular - in a constant state of 'survival mode', grasping and scratching at anything to stay alive and breathing. It's not a coincidence that the men MOST affected AND infected are poor, undereducated, chronically homeless, victims and perpetrators of violent crimes, jobless, and mired in wars of substance abuse and mental illness.

As a Black heterosexual male, DC resident, and HIV positive since 1986, I have witnessed "discussions" about the deaths and dying of young Black men come and go over the years - many of these talks signify nothing and rarely translate to effective and sustainable strategies that save lives. Enough with the rhetoric, theorizing, and demonizing, this epidemic will not be defeated until we begin to address in a concrete, constructive, and measurable way the social factors that contribute. Failed (and failing) public school systems, absence of employment opportunities for skilled and unskilled workers, skyrocketing cost of living and housing for low income individuals and families... Whether you live in Memphis or Manhattan, Alameda County or Atlanta, the roads are paved with the dead dreams and dead bodies of young Black and Brown men and many in the community do not see constructive changes coming.

We know as Black and Latino men - part of a larger, broader, and infinitely diverse community - must take these conversations beyond the meeting rooms and conference calls and begin to make concrete steps to close the gaps in health disparities, as well as education and economical inequities. We must begin to close the gap in the participation and action disparities as well.

"This report gives us critical statistics on HIV and AIDS in our city and we must take advantage of this information with the sense of urgency that this epidemic deserves," said Mayor Fenty. "Today, the District plans to build on our past efforts to aggressively work to reverse some of the trends that have plagued our community."

Does this sound familiar? In the Nation's Capitol it sure does. Our fearless leader, Mayor Adrian Fenty, His Highness himself gave this stern statement in response to the 'new' clarity in the HIV & AIDS numbers in the city. What came immediately after, with the mic on (maybe he didn't know), was his ambitious two-headed strategy of addressing "mother to child transmission" and testing, testing, testing. Then, of course, followed by (say it with me) more testing. No emergency plan. No comprehensive, multi-agency approach. This bold and innovative charge was presented to a waiting community - THREE YEARS AGO (http://dc.gov/mayor/news/release.asp?id=1184&mon=200711&email_link=FF1107).

So, how has that worked since then? It depends on who you ask.

"We have a serious situation here, but we've also had some success," said HIV & AIDS Administration Director Dr. Shannon L. Hader upon release of the most recent report that states over 14% of DC's gay male population is living with HIV (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032503730.html). You kind of get the sense that if the CDC reported that the city is an "HIV epidemic zone" or that DC had he highest HIV infections in the country - 12 times the national average - or the highest death rate due HIV & AIDS related illness, we would find the success in that. Oh, wait... You've already heard that one?

Dr. Hader and Mayor Fenty have perfected this act of presenting these reports with a silver lining while allowing no recommendations or solutions that will lead to measurable reductions. I'm not sure what is more amazing their 'act' or the disappearing act the City Council Members continuously pull when this news hits.

We say we stand by and support the individuals and communities infected and affected by HIV & AIDS, homophobia, discrimination, poverty, death... And then do nothing - or at very best, not enough. We talk about "bold" and "promising" strategies and interventions and then fall historically short of making the difference, ANY difference, that would provide support, security, and save lives.

Time and again with our 'awareness' days and 'State of ____ AIDS' reports and rants, we almost purposefully avoid the serious discussion of strategies, measured, science-based, and proven strategies that lead to addressing some of the major factors contributing to this epidemic. Why isn't our Mayor demanding a comprehensive city-wide plan that addresses the fundamental elements that put individuals at risk? Why isn't the DC's HIV & AIDS division of the Health Department demanding (or at least encouraging) our city's leaders to provide comprehensive support from other city agencies to help fight a complex battle that it is clearly losing - and if you don't think it is losing, you haven't traveled East of the Anacostia River often, noticed the rapidly increasing list of individuals and families who are homeless with AIDS or the the ever expanding and futile search for low income and safe housing in the District.

Out of the mouths of the city's youths comes the realization that the schools are ill-equipped on many levels to talk about, much less teach them about sex and sexuality education. While the number of teens with sexually transmitted diseases goes up (HIV infections not far behind) along with early pregnancies, comprehensive sex and sexuality education, along with the trained and competent (and willing) educators to administer it are inexplicably absent from class.

Examples of sexual violence among women and girls continues to be silent issue in the news yet is consistently among factors that contribute to homeless mothers, increased HIV infections, and with repetitive non-reported incidents, death. The District is riddled with women young and old who walk around with embedded bruises and contusions, dying from the inside out, praying for help that never comes.

The same can be said for gay men or men who live a lifestyle so stigmatized by the community around them that they would rather die in silence and seclusion than to live one day as an 'Out' individual. Do we really think that the numbers of HIV positive men tested in the clubs, bars, and other hangouts truly represent the many of whom rarely even give their real for fear of retaliation, violence, excommunicated, or worse? We haven't even began to mention the effect of addiction and mental illness on infection rates - or on the accumulation of these god damn stats.

DC Fights Back, a local HIV & AIDS advocacy and activist group, along with community and organizational partners and individuals has developed comprehensive demands that if implemented will identify gaps, describe services needed to fill those gaps, and sets ambitious goals and targets, and includes a strategy for accountability. This plan must include:

• AIDS treatment for every person in need and programs that ensure continuity of care;
• Housing for every person on the HIV & AIDS housing waiting list, and developing a strategy to prevent the list from growing again;
• Access to high quality substance abuse and mental health treatment as part of a continuum of care;
• Expanded prevention programs including harm reduction and clean needle programs to reach all in need;
• A strategy implemented to address the role sexual violence and violence against women plays in rising HIV infection rates as well as barriers to education, care, and support services;
• Competent, science-based HIV & AIDS education to reach all students, parents, and seniors;
  
• A campaign to build unity among DC residents to fight HIV and the stigma that blames and attacks people for illness;
• Remove barriers that restrict employment rights of people living with HIV & AIDS.

We also must have a commitment from our elected, civic, and Faith leaders that fighting this epidemic is actually worth it. We also need a commitment that we are actually worth saving and supporting and not just waiting for the next soundbite.