Down Low Activism

Dear BFDiary,

Gosh I love what the folks over at AOL Black Voices dish up for us black folks to discuss everyday (if you haven't checked them out, you should). This post had to be written partially because of my passion and research on black women (what can I so, we're so dang interesting I just can't help but to want to write about us) and partially because of my work as a sexual health advocate. Seven years ago I joined Gospel Against AIDS, Inc. and helped establish the first ever Christian faith-based sexual health initiative for youth in Detroit. At my alma mater I spent three years planning lectures, forums, film viewings, free/anonymous testing events and conferences to empower young people in the Central New York area to live healthier sex lives (rather that meant abstinence, condoms, or getting counseling for sexual abuse/assault).

After years of working in the area of sexual health on the ground (not some lavish office in an ivory tower) you can imagine my intrigue when Sherri Shepherd (co-host of ABC's The View) and guest host D.L. Hughley were accused of misinforming the audience about, well, the dl. The two were discussing rising HIV-rates among African American women, and sited men who have unprotected sex with men and do not disclose this information to their female partners, with whom they also engage in unprotected sex, as fueling infection rates in the black community. Feathers were rustled in gay and black coalitions, and now they want The View to make a formal statement retracting what they say is inaccurate info.

Here's the deal, Shepherd and D.L. may have exaggerated the picture, but they weren't all in all wrong. J.L. King, who emerged as the face of black men on the down-low devoted more than one chapter in his memoir to the very scary fact that the phenomenon discussed on The View is a reality. After talking with King one-on-one and meeting women who had been married and infected, and watching men admit to infecting their partners through a down-low lifestyle on Nightline's Special Report: AIDS in Black America I can confidently say that these coalitions are fishing. Fishing, I think, for an acceptance in the black community that they are not owed. The facts are the facts. While men who live open heterosexual lives and secret homosexual lives aren't the sole cause of infection, they are a cause. Certain movers and shakers in the black gay community are tired of feeling unloved and rejected, and are often on the defense. We as a black community owe each member the same amount of love, but it doesn't mean we have to agree with or accept their lifestyles. Respect does not require acceptance. And love surely doesn't require that we cover up wrong-doing; in fact, it means that we expose it for the sake of improvement.

Give me the 4-1-1 on what you think.