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choose the stories that entire life truth be access to often. mission free credit cation free instruction just free. range and three. free steer type free. download free broadcast plug in d.d.l. for your media projects a free media. little . path to start this strange new disease affecting healthy young americans looks like

this a period between the first outbreak of summer nine hundred eighty one nine hundred eighty five not only were people coming down 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 he may still be a little dirty secret the biggest part of this little secret is its growth across black america. hold in the african-american community it's it's it's this right here and that's spreading out that way right 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 we're spreading death. among ourselves. both black men down and women are at much greater risk of getting h 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 says. i did everything

possible to get in this position yeah i want to now 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 m.p. she community clone and i think that's why our verse i first fell on top when they 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 doesn't need as i don't believe i'm with you you know slate ok if i get it i want you how are you know i want to get our. 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 adama die you know you tell me i had it all i had a long. who want to know who want i would have buying. so many drugs a jiffy to take my calls for me. and i had a name and one time i had to get stats like trees have so we. just like. i don't think. that being a brute if you only should you know everything everything is heavy you know your legs they have you very weak and you still gotta get in get it out to get these three shots a week yeah honestly i think. i had three blood transfusions because of it you know. so that out was an experience within 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 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's 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 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 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 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 parents plant out entirely piles if 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 room whilst playing and they took one mom out the play room so i guess they were paying her for her to tell me my doctor came out the room and he came and picked me up on a plane home and when we went into the room i see my mom and pillows clears

so me i'm pulling away from my doctor like mommy and still i mean toys equally not i don't know why my mom was crying and she's 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 my birthday wow i guess i just passed so like stand up 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 a 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 raven had to pass and i never expected and. 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 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 pulled my friend away from me and put up a glows around the class so my undo sort of back to her knowing that i was a cherry pie. as if i couldn't go on and crash the poor 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 when i was watching a movie in class and all of a sudden i heard says gold. and i just want my and she was like yeah i'm cutting your hair off 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 made everybody just gonna make fun of me but everyone did not make fun of her and 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 owners they would send them back to disney world i went on my 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 opened the onsen 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 the soap 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 openly just like well how about if i say no to disney world or something and hope i didn't move on a moment they always wanted to go there and i. hope with send me 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 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 like who says like one though he just is right 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 of. i'm glad though as raven grew into her teens life with her mom became strained

they took thirteen i always tell people i did try taking my life away me my mom started making really arguing and mike i says 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 right sixteen seventeen i had to make realize like you know even . be a mom then do something 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 pad i don't look at h.l.v. as a bad thing anymore and my 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 are scared to get tested made on probable 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 where the big al biggest problem is that you know people accepting us and the state my. technology innovation and all the developments from around. the future are covered.

mission. couldn't take three. three. three. three. three. and free. video for your media project free media. asking americans have having me to major spots you know the family and 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 come and support you you know of someone died you can depend on the church to come and bring the food you know to me come and bring whatever you need even help me 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 they'd 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'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 v and aids were shunned by close family members and when they turned to the church they had behead beef steak that initially applied to a. tree anybody willing to come forward without fearing that they would be attacked as specially by the religious leaders the church you know was caught up in this is a homo sexual disease and you know it's you know again you know i'm going to hale and we 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 truth. because of the black church did not want to accept it 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

church has. been known effective jeter but if they did your mother your onto your brothers your sisters because they then also felt like maybe the enemy were part of that being the 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 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 and somebody in an african-american has each and that person essential services in a sense into. silence by family members and local clergy bound by fears and

denial only strengthened the growing prejudice against those infected with hiv every black. has someone who has been addicted to drugs or 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. and i said how because should church we think we see twelve hundred people as a soul in twelve hundred people and easily does 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 you in your administrative office no way you don't see no one gay and as i understand homosexuality and drug addiction are two tippoo's 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 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 dad 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 cosmetic changes

thirty one years later. i have quite a few friends that were raised in a church so all you know i have lots in late surge service 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 the same there isn't anything in the koran actually says about homosexuality being gay it's just a lot of the other. laws governed by the sharia laws you know things that were not a part of the some 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 livin in a fog. but i was in a daze. how. 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 what i'm involved with 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 why i'm in a relationship with a mother started crying. being the man he is asking so what does mean you want dresses and they bring you little he said that the day said mother 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 the 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 made 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 a number 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 disc of 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 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 get tested with the results we always don't get into care particularly in rural geographical 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 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 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. over sixty 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 nurse practitioner advanced practitioners pharmacists dentists did not know the stations 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 he seems to carry a burden. we just can't explain. this fear seems to be borne in

not just the general public but among medical practitioners as well we had and i had an opportunity to speak with some young physicians. just finishing up residence and a group of them were talking at the meeting we were recently and. as each of you being taught 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 don't want to windows patients are not are positive ok no clinicians clinicians with whom he has been a room all of their life. and we were stunned when one young woman talked about being in the clinic. a patient was each of you. should be. going to. them front of us said to her did you get to meet poses of.

the people. the way or. the.