her. laura laurian. rural. bath to start this strange new disease affecting healthy young americans looks like this a period between the first outbreak of aids summer nine hundred eighty one and one nine hundred eighty five not only were people coming down with a it's dying and so forth but nobody knew who had it or who didn't now more than thirty years since its arrival the face of aids looks like this but the social stigma of this disease lingers persons get educated who but in the back of their

mind h.i.v. may still be a little dirty secret the biggest part of this little secret is its growth across black america as of n.a.s.a.'s gotten a hold in the african-american community it's it's it's this right here and that's spreading out that way despite in the african-american community a collective silence has enabled it to spread across gender and sexual orientation african-americans tend to have sex with african-americans it's black men and black men usually it's black men and black women usually this prairie death. among ourselves. both black men down women are at much greater risk of getting age i v compared to their white counterparts youth as well as adults. we began our investigation

by looking at men who account for seventy percent of all new infections among blacks but what was surprising is that it's not just men who have sex with men who need to be concerned about hiv. i did everything possible to get in this position you know i wanted that you know the way i did my life was fast and free so i pretty much got what i was looking for if i'm not mistaken now with and p g communities he wanted i think that's why i first fell on top when he told me i didn't believe you know because i had all these s.t.d. is like now i it a cool way. you know bad i was my thing in baghdad it overall way but

it didn't go away and stanley's response was going now you know oh it doesn't need as like i already already you know like ok if i get it i want you how are you know i want to get our. and i probably did go get had i day you know i would not think about it because i know i know i know me so i play and we get home and my dad you know you tell me all head on head along. he want to know who won i would have buying. so many drugs they would be to take my calls for me. and i had a name and at one time i had to get stats like greece has a week. i think. that be a neighborhood if you only shoot it was you know everything everything is heavy you know your legs they have your very weak and you still got to get them to get it out

to get these three shots so we yeah and that's the way i think. i had three blood transfusions because of it you know. so that out was an experience both in the self and after living with hiv for over thirty years if i tell you a story you think that all of it you got to go through. and it's like. everybody's body is different and you know everybody's body is different what i go through you may never go through then again you might go through it twice is worse so don't look at me and say oh yeah i'm opposed to no i'm not opposed to. someone then with it every. i remember when major magazine said this would never be a heterosexual disease it would always be you know in the in the gay community it

would always been the drug community it would now have a spread to they had all sorts of community well that was false but when people heard that it was like all thank god i'm heterosexual i don't have to deal with i have to be worried about the state of this epidemic our investigation reaffirmed that men having sex with men are highly susceptible to contract ing hiv. what we also learned is that straight heterosexual black men are a rising tide in contributing to the growth of this deadly virus take ten percent of the population may be african-american but we make up a much larger percentage of the individuals that infected with hiv the any and it is screwing especially among young people young african-american the centers for disease control have presented strong data showing that youth between

ages thirteen to twenty nine are an ever growing population falling prey to h.i.v. . however we learned of a segment of this group that seems to have gone almost unnoticed youth born with this disease i've heard women use the terminology you know he gave this to me when somebody gave you something it's because you accepted i contracted hiv from this man i was in a relationship with him and we had a child i love my daughter he meant for the i thank him and for whatever reason that god used him and me as a vehicle to bring this challenge to the world h.i.v.'s here the elephant is in the room as to what i'm doing with that elephant i no longer. have locked myself into this anger you know look what he did to me.

when i burned spawn thousand entirely positive i was six years old and i don't. it was on my doctor's appointment and you know how they have a play room for kids no one waiting for the doctor and i was in the play roles playing and it's a crime i'm out the pay room so i guess there's who are paying for the tell me my doctor came out the room and he came and picked me up from the playroom and when we went into the room i see my mom and pillow clears so me i'm pulling away from my doctor like mommy alan still in me toys because you know i don't know why my mom was crying and she's like most we hired just come in and the doctors was like you know your mom want to talk to you so i'm like ok and she just told me she just like blurted out i guess i just passed so like stand up and how she is birches blurted out and so my first question was that oh you're on a diet because i used to hear like a lot of kids in africa dying from a child being made so that was my biggest fear that i was going to die they both

advance the way that i could understand they you know there's medications out there that's going to take care of you but you're not this is something that's going that you're going to live with forever i shared with the school that raising every possible i never expected outcome i never expected teachers would have discriminated against or even i never expected that administrators would not have taken the time to learn and understand how this disease is transmitted so they wouldn't discriminate against it. so when i went to school the next day and i had told my arm friend i say you know i went to the doctor and my doctor told me that i had my mom told that i had hiv and i soon as i said that my teacher she automatically pulled my friend away from me and probably glows around the class so my do sort of back to her knowing that i was hiv positive i couldn't go on a crash trip she's to pull garbage bags around me like if i had to use the bathroom she let me use the bathroom or myself choose to take my school lunch away from me

or do so factor me being a child be positive she was abused she was abused by always school system other children started harassing gravely and she even got older but to know that adults treated this child the way that she did a minute child was in catholic school. private schools you would think you know somebody know better they do better that was not the case kids used to make fun of me saying that i had the monster or they used to just that i would get things to me like this one guy used to have really long hair she cut my hair off one day like i was when i was watching a movie in class and all of a sudden i heard says gold. and i just want like and she was like yeah i'm cutting your hair up because you're going to die soon and i just sat there and i love how continue doing it and because i'd just like as i said we've grown up i just felt like you know this is how my life is going to be like everybody just going to make fun of me but everyone did not make fun of her and that the tender age of six

trichotomy oprah winfrey and i was a millennium dream at the time that's what made donal's was doing kids that dealing with any type of owners they were sending my to disney world i went on my show and i was sick at that time i had a fever but i was like oh i'm sick i don't want to sit next to me and she just open arms to make sweetheart i don't care what you have you're on my show i want you to tell me what what do you go through in like this remember me say in the old and she was just crying my mother just are crying because man just telling everybody i'm having a child being. always sick and i told them i'm gonna open it just like well how about if i say no to disney world or something and hope i didn't move and then went there i was months ago there and i. hope listening to disney world i confronted her dad he said to me ain't life ain't life a bit. you know how long i've been living with this he called me and he was

a spike while he was on the show why did you tell people to eat i'm positive you shouldn't do that how do you think i'm going to look so is like who says like one though he says if i when he hears asked why it's on the magazine our science on the hill just get upset like he's not supportive of why though as raven grew into her teens life with her mom became strained they took thirteen i always tell people i add they tried taking my life away me my mom started making really auguring and like i used to thank it really matter had it was just it was a lot to me at that i say my teenage years was like my most lucky. i got to the age of like sixteen seventeen i had to make realize like you know even

. your mom didn't do something or because you know she didn't know at the time and i had to realize i had to put my family sense into this like. i was born with that i did x. that is you know i can't be mad at my mother what can she do you know let me make make it make your future better don't don't look beyond the path i don't look at a child we as a bad thing in my and of other youth in raven's age group who are planning to contract in h i v. the reaction of people what they're going to think of them. the stigma that's the main one i think of the stigma that's why a lot of young kids the skid think it tested me that they discussed being on stuff like that but i'm talking as they young because i'm still in the young generation that you know that's the that's what the big biggest problem is that you know people accepting us. in a statement. and

. i. will put them. out of sight but still on our minds from the still it seems to norm let's try to live smarter smartphones you never know what some people are hiding and can't be sure to probe down to the molecular level learn what the doctor ordered has all been based on secrets under our skin and let it shine the light on a kid in a world. we've got the future covered. ah

. was asked the americans have have a need to me to spot soon of the family in the church to address whatever crisis

they are going through because the church was the place that sent us historically the collets the church was the place of you had the illness the chance of going call and support you you know of someone died you can depend on the church to come in bring the food you know to me come in bring whatever you need even help you to bury your loved ones you know i mean that was the church of whatever you didn't have the chance of going to come in and fill that gap for you. but when the aids first hit black america most family members were caught off guard those two points those points of comfort were not quite there you know thank god some people had great family support. most families back then did not know what he was they were afraid you know there was not a lot of information there was a lot of myths so we have that myth that it's not part of me i'm not gay i'm not

a lesbian oh i'm a lesbian i can't catch it. i'm not in that age group i can't catch it yes it is it's it's it's in the house many victims of h.i.b. and aids were shunned by close family members and when they turned to the church to head the stigma that initially applied to a. anybody willing to come forward without fearing that they would be attacked as specially by their religious leaders the church you know was caught up in this is a homosexual disease and you know it's you know again you know going to hell and we're not going to you know we're not going to address that that he was so important for the black church to be there for the community because of the black church did not want to accept me because you are gay or begin to see a child being in had a bigger sort of impact in that if you were not then allowed to potentially good it

has. been known effective jeter but if it did your mother your onto your brothers your sisters because they then also felt like maybe they you know me were part of that being a child so in the beginning it's a gay white man's disease black folks it's not out issue really when people were dying left and right by nineteen eighty six african-americans accounted for twenty five percent of those infected with hiv causes for this rapid increase were disproportionately low response of the national state and local levels adding to these external factors was the growing stigma surrounding this infection. unlike many other communities when somebody. an african-american has each and that person essentially says in a sense into. silence by family members and local clergy bound by fears and an oil only strengthened the growing prejudice against those infected with hiv every

black family has someone who has been addicted to drugs or alcohol and someone who was gay you know so that wasn't a new phenomenon what was new was that we were not about to talk about it in public i had a minister the said to me it's a real reverend cheek. homosexuality i don't have that problem in my church has had a problem. i said how because the church we think we see twelve hundred people has a soul in twelve hundred people and easily to say that ten percent of the population is gay and lesbian and you don't see anybody so you don't have anybody in your choir you don't have anybody on your deacon board on your ministerial staff on you in your administrative office no way you don't see no one gay and as i understand homosexuality and drug addiction are two taboos that were well entrenched within the black family but almost never openly discussed. aids in the black family added one more tip to subject to be consciously ignored the many times

i would preach a sermon call for a family and that would have the family come and say you cannot say that he was gay or you cannot say that he died of aids you can say out of cancer but they can you can say he died of aids are you kidding me all of the whole community no. so the way i used to give a round that was i would have remarks come first and of course people would get up and say well i knew when he first got infected and the family would get us out never said a word that was like the big elephant in the room and nobody wanted to talk about it. we explored internal factors that led to the early growth in the aids epidemic in black america while doing so we learned that silence fear and denial so evident back then has undergone little more than cosmetic changes thirty one years later. the

looming load . and i have quite a few friends that were raised in the church you know i had lots in a church service and been so quite a few church visiting but it was something that i just didn't see. in my spirit and still totally come to. enjoy the music but a lot of the other rituals just didn't sink in and as i became older and found all way islam was the only way that i knew in the new place that i needed to go back to what i needed something spiritually something a little more religiously grounding. from my understanding there isn't anything in

the koran actually says of all the homosexuality being gay it's just a lot of the other. laws govern by the sharia laws you know things that got a lot of us sort of what the profit were practice. where it goes into homosexuality . it being missing. the point i first found out i was positive. like i said i really didn't think it would be possible i was doing a student teaching and i want all my lunch break to get my answers to get the results . and when i walked out today and he said i was positive it was like i was living in a fog. but i was in a daze. and i went back to work like nothing had ever happened but it did it devastate i didn't know

where to turn to talk to. how to tell family. i was lost. it was my mother father and we were any kitchen. and my husband says oh hi how are you what's going on and they say nothing you know i had him with me there as well when it's all me you know i need you guys to this is one involved with it in a mother was cooking we came in and he said he wanted to talk and he came in and my husband came in. he told us he had something to say to us and it's own that i was a heavy positive this is why i'm in a relationship with my mother started crying emma father being the man he is asked me so it is me you want dresses and i bring you do you know who he said at the was going out and just life floored me that started the whole argument and i just walked out you know that put a big strain on our relationship. is different it's better than it was there isn't

a whole lot of conversation or close to none conversation about my sexuality me being gay or meet me any positive. washington d.c. carries the distinction of being ground zero for having the highest h.i.v. infection rate in america all of d.c. has an epidemic because there are unusual consolation as not being a state not even be in city where a cut out all of d.c. is that in them an epidemic level but d.c. is not so unique when compared to other major cities across the nation if you compare metro d.c. that is diminished did the disco columbia and its suburbs metro d.c. with metro philadelphia metro chicago metro miami were about the same there are

twelve cities in the united states in which half of the people with hiv aids lives city d.c. is one of those twelve cities. we spoke to medical professionals concerning the disproportionate rise of hiv aids in the black community you ask how can forty five to fifty percent of our community be douglas' with the disease and we know how to prevent it by the way african-americans are more likely to get tested in any other ethnic group more likely to get to know we get tested would always go for the results we always don't get into care particularly in rural graphical remote areas we tend to have a physician or a clinician who has graduated from school or from college you know ten fifteen years ago we never had to treat persons or interview positive because it was all you remember the infectious disease physicians who treated so they still don't treat and they still don't know and they're not willing to show what is the level

of hiv training provided for medical professionals the majority of the local hospitals and doctors offices within the district of columbia i think staff physicians nurses ancillary personnel understand that this is not a disease of casual contact so that you go in the hospitals now you don't see red bags outside of the door you don't see signs up there of isolation just because a person is a positive you may see it up there for a host of other reasons but not for being positive. it would seem that this heightened awareness of medical professionals would lead to earlier detection of new age hiv patients six to two percent of patients who actually come into care are diagnosed with aids within a year of being testing positive for hiv let me see that again within a year of a diagnosis of hiv over six to two percent of those patients are diagnosed with

aids those patients the majority of them were receiving medical care what it means then is that the clinicians the physicians physician assistant nurse practitioner advance practitioners pharmacists dentists did not know the clinical manifestations of the disease or didn't pay attention. of those who can afford medical care it appears that many medical practitioners are not adequately trained in detecting the early signs of hiv or may simply choose not to treat such patients nobody worries about being positive with syphilis and or nobody even thinks twice about most herpes infections but it's i.v. seems to carry a burden. we just can't explain. this fear seems to be born not just the general public. as well we.

speak with. physicians. just finishing up residence. in your program and twelve. patients and residents getting ready to go to become full fledged physicians. one of patients from the top dozens of. clinicians clinicians was home. overnight. and we were stunned when one young woman talked about being in the clinic and a patient. going to. said to her did you. give. stream quality enjoy your

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