Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Washington Blade - October 22, 2004
Ryan Lee
The comments from Satcher, the nation's chief health administrator from 1998 to 2002, came after a pair of gay activists called attention to what they said were the "invisible deaths" of black gay men during the AIDS pandemic.
"I don't think there's any way to defend the fact that we have not been sensitive [to gays] ... and there's still a lot of homophobia out there," Satcher said. "We've made some progress, but we still have a long way to go [and] there's no excuse for what happened in the past."
Satcher's comments came during a Oct. 15 town hall meeting at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta sponsored by the Los Angeles-based Black AIDS Mobilization Initiative, a consortium of the Black AIDS Institute, Balm in Gilead, National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, the Magic Johnson Foundation and Outreach Inc.
"For 20 years in this country, gay black men have been dropping like flies from HIV and AIDS, and forums like this have gone largely unattended," said Kevin Bynes, who directs an outreach program for young black men at AID Atlanta.
"Now that HIV and AIDS has reached the heterosexual community in a way that they can't turn their backs on it, we see people busing students in to [these forums]," Bynes said.
Bynes was joined by Craig Washington, volunteer and training coordinator for Positive Impact, an HIV advocacy group in Atlanta.
"I'm weary and frustrated and tired of the erasure of the lives and experiences of black gay men," Washington said. "What are you prepared to do to make sure [safe-sex messages targeting African Americans] are also dealing directly with the lives and experiences of black gay men?"
Washington lashed out at large, conservative black churches and pastors who regularly condemn black gay men and lesbians, "telling us we're abominations," he said.
Washington and Bynes were the last two audience members to pose questions to a seven-member panel before Satcher spoke. Their complaints sparked the most impassioned discussion of the two-and-a-half-hour session.
About two-thirds of the town hall forum's audience consisted of students from historically black colleges and universities, whom organizers called key to stemming the tide of HIV among blacks.
Call to fight the disease Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.) delivered the keynote address and told students that their determination to eliminate the scourge of HIV is reminiscent of his generation when they rallied to fight racial oppression.
"I didn't march across the bridge in Selma, on Bloody Sunday, and have a concussion, almost die, to come to a point where I see so many of my young brothers and sisters dying of HIV and AIDS," said Lewis, a supporter of gay rights including marriage.
"This is a great nation, and we're a proud people, but we can do much better. So let's go out there and conduct a crusade, let's just go out there and get in the way," he added.
The Black AIDS Institute also hosted two media roundtables - one for black journalism professionals, the other for black student journalists - focused on dispelling the "down low myth," which attributes the rise in HIV among black females to black men who also secretly have sex with men, said Jasmyne Cannick, media relations director for the Black AIDS Institute.
"A lot of reporting on African Americans and AIDS out there has not been backed up by facts," Cannick said.
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