The Lowdown on the Downlow – Looking For HIV/AIDS in All the Wrong Places

”The flawed logic often perpetuated by the media is that only homosexual men have HIV, bisexual men only contract HIV through homosexual behavior, and the only way black women contract HIV is through sexual contact with these bisexual men,” Malebranche said. “Homosexuals are not the only ones with HIV, and just because someone keeps their same-sex behavior secretive doesn’t necessarily mean that they are irresponsible with condom use.”

“Secretive sexual behavior has been around since the dawn of time,” said Dr. Malebranche to BC. “Why is it that now we need a new name for this behavior, aside from our need to blame and demonize black men, and distract our attention from what’s really going on? … Aside from…injected drug use, most of it [AIDS] comes from one place – unprotected sex. And most of the sex that most of us are having and continue to have with partners of the same or either sex continues to be unprotected. It’s foolish, and in the context of an epidemic it’s dangerous to imagine that so-called ‘down low brothers’ have a corner on the market for risky behavior or unprotected sex. They don’t. We all have a hand in this.”

BC thinks Dr. Malebranche is onto something here. The myth of the downlow fails to accurately explain where the virus comes from or equip us to protect ourselves and each other. It is both a racist and a homophobic slander. Oprah’s producers must have known that however false and misleading it might be, their “down low” show would attract viewers and be remembered by them, just like that low-down hustler J.L. King knew it would sell books. The market has an endless appetite for shocking tales of unique black depravity. We need look no further than last week’s reports broadcast around the world of sniper fire halting the helicopter evacuation of hospital patients in New Orleans, which the FAA now confirms never happened.

BC suspects we may be seeing a new kind of defamatory offensive against African America, in which some of the worst pathologies of white America are projected by its corporate media upon us. One such canard currently in wide circulation holds that the African American community in general, and especially the black church, are, unlike their white counterparts, bastions of virulent homophobia.

Certainly there is no doubt that black homophobia exists, and that many backward pastors drink and dispense from this poisoned well. It’s also true that gay male musical directors in black churches are prevalent often enough to be a kind of cliché. Nobody at BC has spent much time in white Baptist churches, but we doubt they see much of that, or that gay band leaders and drum majors are a cliché in white colleges either.

BC Consults an HIV-AIDS Treatment Professional

As Executive Director of the South Carolina’s HIV-AIDS Council, Dr. Bambi Gaddist has been on the front lines of HIV-AIDS treatment and advocacy a long time. She has a PhD in Public health. In our conversation with her about the “down low,” homophobia, the black church and the AIDS epidemic Dr. G addist recounted that for years there have been several standard questions she has asked every person who comes through her agency’s doors for service, and which she has also asked many hundreds of people for whom she has done workshops and presentations. Among those questions are:

Uniformly, Dr. Gaddist reports, those questioned say they were under 20, used no protection and doubt anyone could have said anything to prevent the encounter.

“African Americans concerned about the HIV-AIDS epidemic are not well served when we allow lurid conversations about the ‘down low’ to take up all the oxygen in the room… There are vast disconnects between what we as peers and parents tell each other, between what many of our churches are telling young people, and what we are actually doing, and yet another disconnect between that and what we must do to get a handle on this epidemic,” says Dr. Gaddist. “HIV-AIDS is not a ‘gay disease’, and ‘down low bruthas’ are not lurking everywhere, but the virus could be anywhere… It’s the spirit of shame, fear, and judgment that continues to perpetuate the spread of the virus throughout our community and families.”

Dr. Gaddist added that the South is now ground zero for the black HIV-AIDS epidemic, its 36% of the US population accounting for 40% of the nation’s AIDS prevalence (existing cases) and 46% of AIDS incidence (new cases) in 2003. If HIV-AIDS was a gay male disease, she points out, why is it on the decline in the western and northeastern US, but on the rise in the south, including the rural South? The answer is that HIV-AIDS is increasingly a black disease, and the southern states is where half of us still are.

Dr. Gaddist believes that, notable exceptions aside, there is plenty of hope and love for all God’s children, regardless of sexual orientation, within the African American church. Its leaders, she says, have a vital role to play in bringing a halt to the epidemic. “Bishops, pastors, and those entrusted with the authority to guide their flocks are now, more than ever, being called to unconditional love for ‘the least of these’. The South Carolina HIV-AIDS Council exists to help them answer that call.”

Where America Refuses to Look For HIV: The Prison Industry

An obvious, overlooked and under-researched vector of HIV-AIDS into black women and black communities is the planet’s largest prison industry, right here in the United States. The US leads the world in the numbers and the percentage of its citizens behind bars. Black America, representing just one-eighth of the nation’s population, contributes about half of the prison industry’s human raw material. Despite mountains of anecdotal evidence, little research to date has been done on the incidence and prevalence of HIV-AIDS in America’s prisons and jails, and the relationship between the epidemic on either side of the walls.

“The Time is Now: The State of AIDS in Black America”, is a compelling, authoritative and easy to read document issued by the Black AIDS Foundation in February 2005 which we highly recommend to any and everyone. It addresses the prison-HIV connection first by pointing out that the grossly disproportionate rate of black incarceration exists alongside the soaring rate of HIV-AIDS infection: