{"id":2246,"date":"2006-04-09T23:41:02","date_gmt":"2006-04-10T06:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/04\/09\/the-new-face-of-hivaids\/"},"modified":"2006-04-09T23:41:02","modified_gmt":"2006-04-10T06:41:02","slug":"the-new-face-of-hivaids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2246","title":{"rendered":"The New Face of HIV\/AIDS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi everyone. My name is Kortney Ryan Ziegler and I currently blog over at blac(k)ademic<\/a>. Amp has generously opened up his blog for me to guest post for a few days. I wanted to kick start off my time here with a posting about HIV\/AIDS and how it is disproportionately affecting black women. I hope you enjoy.
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\nThink back to the mid-80’s during the Reagan era when HIV\/AIDS surfaced and was linked to gay white men. As hundreds of them began to fall ill and die, a widespread panic ensued, resulting in mobilizing the white gay community in attempts to educate people in protecting themselves. Now fast forward to 2006. The new face of AIDS is no longer the young, white, gay promiscuous male–black women are now becoming, if we aren’t already, the group with the highest incidents of HIV\/AIDS in the United States, with the War on Drugs, the prison industrial complex and the conditions of poverty to blame.<\/p>\n

Poverty is inextricably linked to the high numbers of HIV\/AIDS cases amongst black women, as it has provided fertile ground for our increased vulnerability to infection. A number of women are subjected to living in sub-standard public housing, are receiving sub-standard educations, and are working a number of jobs, but barely make enough to survive. This increased susceptibility to psychological and emotional stress has seen more black women turn to intravenous drugs as a mode of escape from these harsh realities. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to realize that a large number of black women are getting HIV\/AIDS from intravenous drug use with contaminated needles, and not the mythological “down low”<\/a> phenomenon the media keeps telling us to believe. Subsequently, the feelings of hopelessness coupled with a low-self esteem also drives some young women to have multiple sex partners without using protection–leading to an exposure of a number of STD’s.<\/p>\n

Access to healthcare is key to the prevention of future HIV\/AIDS cases in young black women. However, since about one in three black women have no health insurance, there are little opportunities for routine checkups that could identify STD’s or their exposure to the virus itself. Furthermore, without healthcare, black women who are infected with the virus are left to be diagnosed in advanced stages of the disease and if pregnant will inevitably transmit the virus to their children–infecting a new generation of young blacks to repeat this cycle. Even if a black woman has HIV\/AIDS and has some form of healthcare, private or public, her economic status will determine rather or not she is able to afford the expensive treatment and medications that are used to manage the virus. This can be an added expense of up to $30,000 a year. Moreover, black women who do have access to healthcare might encounter barriers that prohibit sufficient attention due to institutionalized racism that results in lowered quality care from medical establishments.<\/p>\n

In addition to the conditions of poverty, male partners who are products of the prison industrial complex–which is a breeding ground for the virus, are infecting black women with HIV\/AIDS. Currently, a large number of our nations jails restrict inmates from having access to condoms and safe sex instruction, which heightens the risk of transmitting the disease to their female partners outside of prison. Furthermore, the violent nature of the prison industrial complex constantly puts the lives of young men at risk through contact with contaminated bodily fluids.<\/p>\n

How can we end this destructive epidemic that is systematically killing young black women AND men?<\/p>\n

I personally think there needs to be more focus on sex education in the black community aimed at adolescents and adult women. Such education would need to be culturally specific since HIV\/AIDS disproportionately affects blacks. This education would need to rely on instructing women how to effectively use condoms and when and how to get tested when they have multiple sex partners. Secondly, discussions about self-esteem and female empowerment must take place within black communities. Instruction in self-empowerment will help black women affected by the conditions of poverty to increase their self-awareness without feeling the need for male capitulation. Third, there needs to be more attention given to the disease aside from the yearly black aids day. Grassroots activists and politicians of all colors need to address the multiple factors that are leading to the infection and spread of HIV\/AIDS amongst black women. Many argue that the reason that the number of cases of HIV\/AIDS has decreased amongst whites is because of a mass movement that provided education and deterred further stigmatization of the virus and those with the virus. It is long past due for our movement to take shape to combat the general apathy shared by a large number of blacks in fighting and acknowledging that the virus is not just a “gay disease.” Last, I think the media has a powerful potential to create counteractive images of the AIDS epidemic. We are combated with powerful media images daily that subject black women to roles similar to that of worthless prostitutes–these ideas have infiltrated the psyche of young black men and women, and I believe have forced some of us to adopt those roles as truth. We can use the media, such as blogging, to educate as many folks as possible about how the virus is contracted and spread, also to inform people of the services that are available for women who are living with the virus.<\/p>\n

The HIV\/AIDS epidemic must be at the center of a current black mass movement, similar to how black civil rights were at the forefront of the movements in the 60’s. That same type of grassroots activism that has given blacks, women, and lesbians\/gays more mobility to move within America must be replicated in combating this threat to our lives and it is up to all of us–activists, politicians, religious leaders, and intellectuals alike, to be more straightforward about the virus and its effects within our community.<\/p>\n

Much attention has been focused on Africa as a dying continent from HIV\/AIDS, and that is rightly so. However, black women in the United States deserve the same amount of attention directed towards them and their HIV\/AIDS death sentence. This virus disproportionately affects us and is prohibiting our community from experiencing longevity…we have nothing to lose but our lives if we continue to sweep this issue under the rug.<\/p>\n

This posting is also posted on my blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi everyone. My name is Kortney Ryan Ziegler and I currently blog over at blac(k)ademic. Amp has generously opened up his blog for me to guest post for a few days. I wanted to kick start off my time here … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,94,93,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc","category-gender-and-the-economy","category-race-racism-and-related-issues","category-whatever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}