HIV/AIDS In The Black Community
Alright, lets get right to it. For years HIV/AIDS was seen as a disease that mostly affected those in the gay community, and that may have been the case very early on, however things have changed drastically since then. Not only has this malady ravaged our community but according to statistics the largest demographics in regards to infection use to be women between the ages of 18-35. Now we know that without the women in our community, the community will die. However, it appears in a lot of major inner cities, including Atlanta where I reside the largest spike in new infections is now children between the ages of 13-21. In fact after attending a HIV/AIDS town meeting just a few short months ago I learned that in that the CDC reported that there has a been a discrepancy with the statistics across the board. The head of the infectious disease division stated that the numbers may even be close to 40% higher than originally stated. Now I don't know about you, but that is quite alarming to me.
Furthermore, with all the education, all the information that has been dispensed in the last twenty years, the number of new infected cases is on the rise again. How can that be? Quite frankly there are many contributing factors. Drug addiction, alcoholism play a very large part within the passing on of this disease because when people are impaired they are more likely to practice ineffective behavior. Another major factor is ignorance and denial. Ignorant of just how this disease is passed on and denial in the fact that for some reason we have this "I'm invincible" attitude that this can happen to everyone except me. Through our inability to accept personal responsibility for our behaviors we continue a cycle of infecting not just our selves but other people.
Whether you are infected we all are "affected" by this and to turn a blind eye to it is ridiculous. For decades there has always been something existing within our community that distracted us and stunted our ability to fulfill our potential, live our dreams and provide our children with a bright future. If more and more of our children are being infected, then what does that tell us? Because we as adults are not educated about this how do we expect our children to be educated. If the woman in our community continue to be affected at this rate, in combination with the rising numbers of young adult infections the Black community as we know it will no longer exist.
So what is the solution? First of all we must recognize that we at war and when one recognizes he/she is at War, he/she looks for ways to arm themselves. It is my opinion that an educated warrior makes for a successful one, so because we are at war we choose to meet war with W.A.R. Wellness Awareness and Recovery. Wellness in that we want to promote better health and teach about making healthier choices in regards to our health and mental, spiritual and physical well being. Awareness, wanting the raise the level of our consciousness in those areas as well as inform, educate and empower people to participate in their own survival or know that you become complicit in your own demise. Recovery, it is my opinion that when we look at ourselves addiction is at the root of a lot of our issues. It doesn't matter what the substance is we are all addicted to something. (salt, sugar, drugs,etc...) So we want to recover our ability to live fully and successfully without the use and abuse of things that are detrimental to our well being. So, are you ready for W.A.R?
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