evades summer nine hundred eighty one and i nine hundred eighty five not only were people coming down was a zoo and 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 a time he may still be a little dirty secret the biggest part of this little secret is its growth across black america as other nations gotten a hold in the african-american community it's it's it's is 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 spreading

death among ourselves. both black men down and 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. so. i did everything possible to get in this position yeah i wanted that you know we had to have my life was famous and free so i pretty much got what i was looking for when i'm not

mistaken with him p g community clone and i think that's where our verse first fell into when he told me i didn't believe it you know because i had all these c.d.'s like now. it's a cool way he had a. bet with my thinking about it it will way but it didn't go away and stanley's response was you know. like i already already you know i was like ok if i get it i'm like yeah. you know i'm one again. and i probably did go get a had a 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. you know you tell me i had it all had a long. who want to know who want i would have buying. so many drugs

he did you take me to my cost me. and i had and you know one time i had to get stats like greece has a week. just like. i'd think not being able to do if you don't wish it was you know everything everything is heavy you know your legs they have your very weak and you still gotta get in get it out to get the straight shot so weak yeah that's the way i think. i had three blood transfusions because it isn't enough. so that out was an experience both in the self and after living with hiv for over thirty years if i tell you my story. is that all of it you gotta go through. and that's why. everybody's body is different 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 show no i'm not opposed to. someone then with a charity. 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 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 ahead roe sexual black men are a rising tide in contributing to the growth of this deadly virus thirteen 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 he's a 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 three i thank him and for whatever reason that

god use 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 parent's five hundred thousand entirely positive i was six years old and. 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 they took one mom out the play room so i guess they were paying for her to 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 believe clears so me i'm pulling away from my doctor like mommy alice though i mean toys equally not i don't know why my mom was crying and she was like most we had 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 explain that and how she is birches blurted out and so my first question was that always on a diet because i used to hear like a lot of kids in africa dying from a child me an aids so that was my biggest fear that i thought i was going to die they both advance the way that i can 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 raven having passed and 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

my mom told me that i had hiv and i soon as i said that my teacher she automatically pull my friend away from me and put up a glows around the class so my on do so the fact that her knowing that i was a cherry pie. as if i couldn't go on in crash to put garbage bags around me like if i had to use the bathroom use the bathroom or myself choose to take my school lunch away from me and all the fact that me being a child be positive she was abused she was abused by our school system other children started harassing rave and she even got older but to know that adults treated this child the way the cheated on 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 have 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 while i was watching

a movie in class and all of a sudden i heard says gold charm and i just want my 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 when growing up i just felt like you know this is how my life is going to be made everybody just gonna 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 drilling with any type of onus they would send them back to disney world i went on his show and i was sick at that time i had a fever and i was like oh i'm sick i don't want to sit next to me and she just open arms and like sweetheart i don't care what you have you're on my shoulder i want you to tell me what what do you go through and like i was remember me say in talking to old and she was just crying my mother just start crying because mandy is

telling everybody i'm having a child being i'm always sick and i told them i'm done oprah just like well how about if i suddenly disney world or something and hope i didn't move on a moment they always wanted to go there and irish eastern hope was send me to disney world and 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 just like why do you why would you on the show why did you tell people to eat i'm positive shouldn't do that how do you think i'm going to look so is this like lucius like one though he just is like when he hears i saw you thought on the magazine also you don't on the he'll just get upset like he's not supportive for all of. i'm glad though as raven grew into her team's life with her mom became strained they took that scene i always saw people add they tried taking my life away me my mom started making really arguing and like isis thank it really matter

had it was just it was a lot for me at that as a 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 . be a mom then do something but you know she didn't know at the time and i had to realize that 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 you make your future better don't don't look beyond the path i don't look at h.l.v. as a bad thing anymore in my life and of other youth in raven's age group who are prone to contract in h i v. the reaction of people what they're going to think of. the stigma that's the main one i think of the stigma that's why

a lot of young kids escape think it tested made on probable that they discuss stuff like that but i'm talking as they because. that you know that's the. biggest problem is that you know people except being a. mistake. cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo

cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo. mission. critical three. three. three. three. three. old free blog video for your media project free. speech or language. programs or documentaries in arabic it's all here on. reporting from the world's hot spots the p.r.p. interviews. interesting. so you did.

visit. sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything your. heart is a big picture. asking americans have having me to me to spot some 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 church. and support 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 me to bury your loved ones you know i mean that was the church if you would have you didn't have the chance of going to come in and fill that gap for you. but when they first 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 i'm a lesbian and i can 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 a child b.

and aids were shunned by close family members and when they turned to the church they had the have the stigma that initially applied to a. three anybody willing to come forward without fearing that they would be attacked as actually 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 i'm going to hail and we're not going to you know we're not going to address that he was so important for the black church for the truth. because of the black church did not want to accept it because you're a gay or begins a child being in had a bigger sort of impact in that if you were not then allowed to potentially good church has. been known effective jeter but if it did your mother your onto your brothers your sisters because they then also felt like maybe the enemy or part of that being shot 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 prime causes for this rapid increase were a disproportionately low response at the national state and local levels adding to these external factors was the growing stigma surrounding this infection. on like many other communities when somebody in an african-american has a child that person is sentences in a sense into. silence by family members and local clergy bound by fears and denial only strengthen the growing prejudiced against those infected with hiv every black family has someone who. has been addicted to drugs and alcohol as 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 said rule reverend cheeks. homosexuality i don't have that problem in my church i said a problem. i said how because should church we think we see twelve hundred people as a soul in twelve hundred people and easily to say that ten percent of the population this 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 your 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 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 doubt 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 as it 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 as undergone little more than cosmetically changes thirty one hours later.

i have quite a few friends that were raised in a church so all you know i have lots in church service and then so quite a few churches 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 knew 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 about homosexuality being gay it's just a lot of the other. laws govern by the sharia laws you know things that were not

a lot of the 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 they said i was positive it was like i was livin in a fog. but i was in a daze. how. and i went back to work like nothing 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 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 i told that i was a positive this is who i'm in a relationship with a mother started crying and my father being the man he is asking so what does it mean you don't start dresses and they bring you little he said at the days it was god 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 maybe 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 a number of epidemic levels 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. forty five to fifty percent of our community be diagnosed with the disease we know how to prevent it by the way african-americans are more likely to get tested in any group more likely to get to get tested with the results we always don't get into care particularly in rural. 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 when never had to cheat persons or interview positive because it was all you remember the infectious disease physicians were treated so they still don't treat and they still don't know and they are not willing to. 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 and you don't see red bags outside of the door you don't see signs up there of isolation just because a person is 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 those patients the majority of them were receiving medical care what it means then is that the clinicians the physicians physician assistant. vance practitioners

pharmacists dentist did not know all 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 h.i.b. seems to carry a burden. that we just can't explain. this fear seems to be born not just the general public but among medical practitioners as well we had i had an opportunity to speak with some young physicians. just finishing a presidents and a group of them were talking with

a meeting we were at recently and the us code is each of you being taught in your in your program and told them said to us you know when we're at the hospital do t. shirts and these are residents getting ready to go to become full fledged physicians visiting a little one of windows patients room to talk positive ok no clinicians clinicians with whom hiv has been a room overnight. and we were stunned when one young woman talked about being in the clinic. and a patient was each of you some cookies in that should be. going to know. right then front of us said to her did you equals each of the pleasures of cookies.

in the movie. the way or the.

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