little old. at the start this strange new disease affecting healthy young americans looks like this a period between the first outbreak of aid summer night hundred eighty one and ninety five not only were people coming down was aids and dying and so forth but nobody knew who had it or who difficult 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 but in the back of their mind h.l.v.

may still be a little dirty secret the biggest part of this little secret is its growth across black america in asia is gonna hold in the african-american community it's it's it's right here is not 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 we're spreading 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 says. i did everything possible to get in this position yeah i wanted that act you know the we had to have my life was famous and free so i pretty much got what i was looking for if i'm not mistaken alice and pain she communicates he clone and i think that's why our verse i first fell on top when he told me i didn't believe yeah because i had all these s.t.d. is like now. if you go away here. you know that i was my thinking

about did it of all way but it didn't go away and stanley's response was going now you know oh this doesn't need as like i would be on with you you know. ok if i get it i'm like yeah. you know i want to get our. and i probably did go get a had day you know i would not bring it about it because i know i know i know me so i do as leg 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 a jiffy just to free to leave my calls to name. and i had a name and at one time i had to get stats like trees have a we. just like. i don't think. that be a neighborhood if you don't wish it was you know everything everything is heavy you

know your legs they have you very weak and you still gotta get them to get it out to get these three shots a week yeah that's the way i think. i had three blood transfusions because it hit me and. so that out was an experience 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 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 sharon 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 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 all thank god i'm heterosexual i don't have to deal with i have to be worried about this you know 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 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 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 is 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 my parents found out out entirely positive i was six years old and. it was on my doctor's appointment and you know how they have a playroom for kids no one waiting for the doctor and i was in the play rolls playing and they took one mom out the play room so i guess those who are paying 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 the wrong i see my mom and bill of tears so me i'm pulling away from my doctor like mom 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 like blurted out i guess i just passed so like explain that and how she just blurt she's 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 being maids 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 know this is something that's going that you're going to live with forever i shared with the school that raising a child impossible i never expected. 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 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 put up a glows around the classroom and do sort of back to her knowing that i was a child cry. as if i couldn't go on in crash if she's to pull garbage bags around me like if i had to use the back don't use the bathroom or myself choose to take my

school lunch away from me although the fact that me being a child be positive she was abused she was abused by i was school system other children started harassing rave and she even got older. i 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 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 this gold charm and i just went like 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 when growing up i just felt like you know this is how my life is going to be and everybody's just

going to 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 onus they would send them my to disney world i went on his show and i was sick at that time i had a fever maybe 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 in like this remember me say in talking to oprah 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 thought i was done and done oprah just like well how about if i send you to disney world or something and hope i didn't move and then went there i 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 bitch. you know how long i've been living with this he called me and who says mike 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 just as 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 glad. as raven grew into her teens life with her mom became strained they took thirteen i always saw people had they tried taking my life away me my mom started making really auguring make isis i get really mad i 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.

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 in my and of other youth and 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 being on privately that they discussed being on stuff like that but i'm talking as the 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 stigma.

told. her i. felt. that the speed. of her. with my.

mom is so good at. the montana minimum. and i come out of my bottom end a little and. his power was the envy of emperor as. he had good reason to trust no one. his body was found on the floor of his huge empty house. but did he die of natural causes. the mystery of stalin's day on seeing.

these children. they're serving a sentence just like their mother. or the ones born in prison. now unless they pay for the crimes committed by. babies. mission free cretaceous free. free. free. free. free. and free. video for your media project free media.

now. 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 historically the collets the church was the place of you had the illness . and supports you you know if someone died you can depend on the church to come in bring the food you know to me come and bring whatever you need even help you to bury your loved ones you know i mean that was the target he 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. 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 on 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 a child were shunned by close family members and when they turned to the church to have the stigma that initially applied to. anybody to come for all that. special 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 wind up going to you know we're not going to address that that he was so important for the black church to be for the troops. because of the black church did not want to accept you because you were gay or begins each i mean in had a bigger sort of impact in that if you were not then allowed to potentially good that position in known effective jeter but if it did your mother or onto your brothers or sisters because they then also felt like maybe they 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 disproportionately low response of the national state and local levels adding to these external factors was the growing stigma surrounding this infection.

is when somebody. an african-american has each and that person essentially says in a sense. silence by family members and local clergy bound by fears and denial only strengthened the growing prejudice against those infected with hiv every black family 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 to said to me it's a rule reverend cheek. homosexuality i don't have that problem in my church i said a problem. i said how because should charge twenty three b. c. twelve hundred people has 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 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 to subject to be consciously ignored many times i would preach a sermon call for 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 then the family would never said a word 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. the low blood. and i have quite a few friends that were raised in the church you know i had lots in the church service and been surprised if in church visiting but it was something that i just didn't see. in my spirit and still to 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 need 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 and actually says of homosexuality being gay it's just a lot of the. laws govern by the sharia law as 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

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 just 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 i was home you know and he's you guys to this is why i'm 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 its own that i was a positive this is why i'm in a relationship with

a mother started crying and being the man he is ask me so what does mean your dresses and i 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 a 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 in a 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 out of 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 disk 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 live 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 forty five to fifty percent of our community be done with the disease and we know how to prevent it by the way african-americans are more likely to get tested and any other ethnic group more likely to get to know we get tested we always go for the results but we always don't get into care particularly in rural graphic in the remote areas where

you tend to have a physician or a clinician who has graduated from school or from college you know ten fifteen years ago when i had to treat persons or interview positive because it was only remember the infectious disease physicians were treated so 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 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 sixty 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 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 in sections but it's i.v. seems to carry a burden that 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 i had an opportunity to speak with some young physicians. just finishing up residence and a group of them were talking we were. talking in your program and told them said to us you know when we're at the hospital doing these are residents getting ready to go to become full fledged physicians who said you know go to one of those patients from the top. ok you know clinicians clinicians who has been a room all of their life. and we were stunned when one young woman talked about being in the clinic and the patient. going to.

them front of us said to her did you get. well. it's technology innovation all the developments from around russia we've got the future covered. we speak your language. news programs and documentaries and spanish. news a little tentative angles stories. visit.

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