SnOMG Super Black AIDS Bowl Weekend

The weekend was so packed with snow and events that I didn't have time to load the rest of my iMovie trailers from seven odd years ago. So you'll have to wait for Alien Pen and Rusty the Vampire Deer Hunter...

One thing I didn't have to wait long on was for the roads to get plowed. Gwenn and I did the smart thing by shoveling our driveway a few times as the 15 inches of snow fell over the course of two days, which made things easier when we made our escape from home today for some coffee. I'd set my alarm for early on Friday, as the snow began to fall, but all of our friends were either doing yoga, taking advantage of sleeping or not answering my frantic text.

This year, the playoffs for the Super Bowl embarrassed me- I'd predicted the Jets and the Vikings to make it to the big game. My vision was that the Jets would win the coin toss to see who would receive the football first, and then Brett Favre was going to stun the world by removing his Vikings jersey, revealing his Jets one from the previous year and taking the Jets to a Super Bowl win.

I know, "Shawn, that sounds like Vince McMahon's failed XFL."

To redeem myself, I predicted the favored Colts to beat the inspirational Saints, 27-17. I think I pick that same score every year like it's a lottery number made up of the birth dates of my dead grandparents. Of course, the Saints humiliated me with a 31-17 victory... but hey, at least I got the 17 right, right?

Yesterday wasn't just the biggest TV event in American culture. It was also National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. I'll let the official web site of NBHAAD tell the tale of why this designation is a necessity:

"When it comes to HIV/AIDS, the famous saying of when White America has a cold - Black America has the flu rings true when it comes to this disease as well. Every year in the United States, since the epidemic began in 1981, Blacks have been disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS."

Every year since 2001, I believe, there has been an observance of Black AIDS Day on February 7. This year, unfortunately, an already overlooked crisis in this country just so happened to fall on one of the most celebrated occasions in American culture. And even if President Obama made an eloquent, tear-jerking speech about the toll AIDS has taken in the community, and the AIDS is one of the leading causes of death in the First Lady's age group, some reporter would have asked him his Super Bowl prediction at the end of the touching speech and that would have been the 12 seconds looped ad nauseum on Headline News.

It's the country we live- it's a beautiful place but the truth hurts. Hell, I'm living with AIDS and I feel apathetic a lot of the time, and get burnt out on having to talk and write about it. And AIDS, in any community regardless of ethnicity, isn't something that is freely spoken about. Would moving this year's observance to a non-Super Bowl day had made any difference? I'm not sure. But it wouldn't have hurt...

Unlike the truth.

Positively Yours,

Shawn

This week Gwenn and I will be traveling a bit, speaking at the National Association for Campus Activities conference in Boston as well as in St. Louis at the Association of Fraternal Leadership & Values. I'll be tweeting from the road!

Shawn on: