Bay Area Reporter - August 3, 2001
David Wallace

Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

As a gay white male, I've been faced with both the "con" of having my community (i.e., the gay community) so overwhelmingly devastated by this disease; yet I also realize, and in fact realize more and more each day, I also have the "pro" of not having my community be as devastated by it as the black community has. Fortunately, finally, word is slowly getting out regarding the continuing, devastating effects AIDS continues to have on blacks: That more children with AIDS in the U.S. are black than all other ethnic groups combined. That HIV prevalence rates among black transgenders in San Francisco have been reported as high as 69 percent. That it's still the leading cause of death for black women in the U.S. How can anyone be truly proud of a country as rich as ours that allows such a thing?

Fortunately, at least according to the latest rhetoric surrounding the 20th anniversary of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's first announcement regarding HIV, a higher percentage of government funding that heretofore has simply bypassed the black community will now be distributed to help this overwhelmed, still at-risk, and difficult to reach community.

Hopefully, that's not just the latest sound bite and real money will follow this rhetoric. This month, in fact, the city AIDS Office will be deciding how to distribute some $12 million in government funding from local, state, and federal sources to provide HIV prevention services in San Francisco. (Full disclosure: I work for the Black Coalition on AIDS, and I feel we "deserve" a sizable chunk of this money.) As the only black AIDS service organization serving the entire black community, we can have a significant impact on this disease in San Francisco. Particularly from a sense of being able to spend the amount of money needed to do truly effective (i.e., culturally appropriate) social marketing campaigns that address some of the underlying social factors that contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS among blacks.

Admittedly, it's a struggle because the black community has been reticent to take "ownership" of this disease. Thus, many people see how the gay community has been willing to take on this issue, compared to lack of comparable ownership the black community has been willing to take, and ask, "Why should we help them when they don't even seem willing to want to help themselves?" How about because it's the right thing to do?

I'm not one of those bitter old men, sitting in a rocker on a porch squawking about "the good old days" (at least not yet), but it does seem that when I was younger more people seemed to, well, actually care about "others." But now? A good example surrounds the discussion from those opposing slavery reparations. "Blah, blah, blah, why should I be forced to pay for something I wasn't responsible for?" Again, maybe because it's the right thing to do? With the same specious reasoning, I could demand that my taxes not support the military. Or schools, since I don't have kids.

The point is, I would not make such an unreasonable demand because I expect society at large to help shoulder the burden of defending the country; I expect society at large to help shoulder the burden of educating the next generation. However, and apparently somewhat naively, I also expect society at large to help shoulder the "burden" of keeping everyone a productive and healthy citizen. Is the only reason we're getting richer and richer is so that we simply can?

Maybe as a student of history, I'm worried about how we'll be perceived. People often scorn the comparison between Rome's "decadent" decline and America's current greed bloodbath. However, it is more than a little plausible that "advanced" society is not going to look back sympathetically on our delay in providing help to a community we (and yes, I mean we) persecuted mercilessly for nearly 300 years.

San Francisco has a golden opportunity to be the leader we have been in the past. San Francisco can back up all of the recent rhetoric surrounding the needs of the black community by finally - and significantly - committing the funding that truly culturally competent agencies can use to start having an impact on this disease in the community it's hitting the hardest. One more time: it's the right thing to do. And, as a society, we will all be rewarded.

David Wallace is the director of development and communications at the Black Coalition on AIDS. For information about services, call (415) 615-9945 or visit www.bcoa.org.
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