Bay Windows - May 3, 2007
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com

Douglas Brooks, executive director of JRI Health, stepped in as a replacement keynote. With only two days to prepare, he delivered a speech that brought the crowd gathered at the John F. Kennedy Library to their feet, drawing from sources as eclectic as former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) leader James Forman, Black Panther Bobby Seale and U.K. dance group M People.

Brooks urged the crowd to adopt a humanist approach to combating the AIDS epidemic in the black community, focusing not only on reducing infection rates but attacking the social injustices that allow the epidemic to flourish. Referencing the recent controversy around former radio host Don Imus's use of the term "nappy-headed hos" to refer to the players on the Rutgers University women's basketball team, Brooks argued that there was a connection between the high rates of HIV infection among black women and the widespread use of derogatory slurs that are aimed at them. He said challenging the use of those slurs was in keeping with Seale's call for young people to try to change the world by drawing on "every principle of human respect and with every soft spot we have in our hearts for human life."

"Isn't that beautiful wording? ... Human respect, such that calls for a reflexive process for challenging slurs and demeaning images no matter where they come from, inside or outside of our community, human respect that causes us to wrestle with the possibility that there exists a correlation between broad social acceptance and economic sanctioning of the denigration of black women and the staggering rates of HIV infection that black women are currently encountering in the United States of America ... Because I think those relegated to the status of 'ho' would be then viewed as unworthy of protection from disease, degradation and violence," said Brooks.

He argued that stigma and discrimination have had a similarly devastating effect on another population that has been among the hardest hit in the HIV/AIDS epidemic, black gay men. Two years ago, using a grant he received from the Academy of Educational Development and the Ford Foundation, Brooks joined with other local activists and community members to study the impact of HIV stigmatization on black men who have sex with men living Boston. The results of the study have not yet been released, but Brooks said he and his fellow activists, including Joshua Gambrell of the Multicultural AIDS Coalition (MAC), Pam Johnson of the Women of Color Roundtable and the Rev. Martin McLee of Union United Methodist Church, found "that the loneliness and isolation of black gay men simply jumps off page after page of the individual and focus group interviews that we've done."

Describing himself as "very church" and an active member of the Union United congregation, Brooks said he nevertheless felt that in looking at ways to address the AIDS epidemic in the black community, activists should look beyond the church to other models of organizing and activism, such as those used by SNCC and the Black Panthers. He also argued that activists should take the theme of this year's breakfast, "love in action," as their guiding principle and called such an approach "revolutionary."

"Especially today as we gather to celebrate the life of Bayard Rustin, we're obliged to reflect on his membership in the Young Communist League, the socialist movement and his belief in a humanist agenda," said Brooks. "Perhaps we might begin seeing the black church not as the moral authority on which we continue to expend great energy and precious time but rather as one of several partners, a [vehicle], not the vehicle for transformation in ending the epidemic."

This year's breakfast presented two awards to advocates working to stop the epidemic in the black community, Wilson and the Women of Color Roundtable. Accepting the Bayard Rustin Award for Courage on behalf of Wilson, openly gay Cambridge Mayor Ken Reeves called Wilson "our modern day Bayard Rustin" for his pioneering work in founding the Black AIDS Institute and said Wilson had inspired him with his call for the black community to take a leadership role in responding to HIV/AIDS.

Pam Johnson, accepting the Belynda A. Dunn Award of Recognition on behalf of the Women of Color Roundtable, sounded a similar message, saying that it is the work of black women, along with the men who support them, that has made a crucial impact on confronting HIV/AIDS in their own community. The Women of Color Roundtable was founded in 1998 to address HIV/AIDS among women of African descent in the Boston area, and for the past two years it has hosted events to mark the National Women and Girls HIV Awareness Day. The award is named after the late HIV/AIDS activist Belynda Dunn.

Gary Daffin, executive director of the Multicultural AIDS Coalition (MAC), gave the crowd statistics about the HIV/AIDS epidemic to show why local advocates have declared a "state of emergency" about the epidemic in the black community. He said that black and Latino Bay Staters make up only about 13 percent of the state's population, but they represent 54 percent of people living with HIV in the state. Black women, said Daffin, are 40 times more likely to be infected with HIV than their white counterparts. Men of color who have sex with men, he said, are the largest group of people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States.

To address the epidemic, Daffin said it was crucial that members of the black community take leadership roles in the fight against AIDS. "We have to have people in our public and private institutions that have been formed by this disease that are people of color, who aren't just there but also have the power to direct resources in ways that they need to be deployed," he said.

Haag of AIDS Action, which sponsors the breakfast, said that while she regretted that Wilson could not attend, his work with the unnamed presidential candidate is important to the larger goal of making sure that leadership in Washington takes responsibility to work towards ending the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic. Since 2005 Haag has spoken publicly on a number of occasions about the work of AIDS Action and other HIV/AIDS organizations to develop a plan to end the epidemic in 10 years. She said Wilson, AIDS Action, the Washington, D.C.-based AIDS Action Council (which Haag also heads) and the Open Society Institute are part of a growing chorus of organizations pushing for both President George W. Bush's administration and future administrations to develop a plan to end the epidemic with measurable objectives and a system to hold officials accountable for its implementation. She said Wilson hopes to meet with every presidential candidate to talk about addressing the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic.

"Unless we hold people accountable, unless we measure our progress, we will not make progress," said Haag.
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