Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 August 2000 — Page 9

FRIDAY AUGUST 4,2000

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

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Is Cheney Bush's idea of inclusion?

Within moments after George W. Bush picked hardline conservative Dick Cheney to be his Republican running mate, A1 Gore beat a hot path to Jesse Jackson's Operation headquarters in Chicago. He warned the mostly Black ■ gathering that Bush’s much re- - peated vow to get more minorities in the GOP was nothing but a smoke and mirrors ploy to deceive Blacks 4nd Latinos. This was easy for Gore to say. Cheney’s congressional scorecard includes opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, tough gun control laws, busing to achieve racial desegregation, federal funding for Abortions, child nutrition programs, and a separate education departihent. ' His knee jerk conservative voting record was a made in heaven chance for Gore to brand Bush a Political fraud when he claims that he wants greater minority inclusion. '' But if Bush blew his chance With Cheney to break the iron grip that the Democrats have on Black and Latino voters he has no one but himself to blame. ' In the days before he picked him there were some signs that the Democratic grip on Black and Latino voters was slipping. FolIbwing the March 7 Super Tuesday election primaries exit polls in California showed that Bush had ]ikred the traditional colossal bulge rh Democratic support among Latinos down to a 2 to 1 margin. ' Overall 1S percent of the Blacks, nearly 30 percent of Latinos and more than 40 percent of Asians voted for Bush-McCain. The Republicans were also heartened by the whopping margins in which Latino, Black and Asian voters supported the antigay ballot initiative that limits marriage to a man and woman, and gave near majority support to another conservative powered initia-

tive that mandates tougher sentences for violent juvenile offenders. In Texas and Florida, Bush, and his brother Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, fondly brag that they bagged about half of the Latino vote and onethird of the Black vote in winning office. The substantial support Blacks gave Bush, at least in Texas, alto shattered the myth that Blacks are cradle-to-grave reflexive party-line Democrats. A sizable percentage of Blacks are pro-life, pro-school prayer, anti-gun control and antiwelfare. Many also enthusiastically support school vouchers, three-strikes laws, stiffer sentences for crime, and drug use and oppose abortion and gay rights. The National Urban League’s recent annual State of Black America report confirms that Blacks, like many whites, have benefited from the boom times. They are better educated, own more homes, have made impressive gains in the corporations and the professions. Democrats see this as a plus for them. They bank heavily that they won’t risk rocking the boat by voting for Bush. But that same prosperity and political comfort can be a doubleedged sword for the Democrats. Many Blacks and Latinos now feel that they have a stronger stake in the system. Republican’s try to play to that feeling by pitching to Blacks and Latinos that their proposals for

school vouchers, bigger tax credits and cuts, and more aid to small business are the best way for them to accelerate their upward social and economic climb. But prosperity, relative racial peace, and the social and the increasingly political conservatism of many Blacks and Latinos is not enough to cause them to make a headlong dash into the Bush camp. He would have to do much more than dole out the few paltry dollars the Republicans have on ad campaigns to attract more Latinos. And he would certainly have to do much more than utter the kind of stock, warmed over platitudes about diversity that he did at the recent NAACP convention. He would have to pledge to make political appointments in his administration that reflect the diversity of America and to confront such hot button issues as immigration reform, racial profiling, the death penalty, the grotesque racial disparities in the prison and criminal j ustice system, a disastrous drug policy, support massive funding increases for health care and education and greater protections for Social Security. The Cheney pick, however, makes a mockery of Bush’ sdangled hints that he would do any of these things. It also gives no reason to think that Bush will do anything to make over the GOP from a clubby, party of ole’ conservative white guys into a party of gender and racial inclusion. In fact, a poll released the same day that Bush picked Cheney showed that Black and Latino support is still rock solid for Gore. No wonder that Gore gloated, “See “I told you so,” about Bush to Jackson’s group. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of The Disappearance of Black Leadership.

Public health officials reaching out to Black gays

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By EMORY CURTIS At the recent International AIDS Conference in South Africa a South African AIDSresearch doctor said a few words about the AIDS problem there that we, African Americans, ought to heed. She said, “The scientific evidence we now have is dramatic. We can, without any doubt, block transmission of the virus from infected mothers to their children. The only question to me is, ‘Why aren’t we doing everything we can to do it?”’ When the African-American AIDS statistics is broken out from the overall United States statistics, it is clear that we, African Americans, are not doing what we can do to reduce HIV infections in our own communities. From the young to the old, our grim AIDS statistics look bad. ■j. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) reported that of the 40,000 new HIV infections each year in the U.S. about one out of two are Black even though we are just one out of eight of the total population in this country. AIDS has been the primary cause of death of Black men in the age category of 25-44 years since 1990 and of Black women in that same age category since 1993. - Black men are dying from AIDS at the rate of 140 per 100,000 populations while the rate for white men is 20 per 100,000. The disparity between white and Black women is greater; Black women are dying from AIDS at the rate of 20 per l^O.OOO while two per 100,000 white women meet that fate. ‘The transmission of HIV from mother to child at birth has resulted in 7,310 cases of AIDS in children as of September 36,1997; six out of 10 of those cases are Black children. That transmission is blockable now by the mother taking a pill before delivery and giving the baby a dose a week after birth. To hold that protection, the baby then must be bottle-fed; the HIV

mother’s milk can give the baby the HIV virus too. So far, in all of the research, no cure for HIV/AIDS has been found. And even if it was, we shouldn’t depend on it. HIV/ AIDS is a lifestyle ailment. It is an infection you get doing a pleasurable activity — having sex. Or, in the case of drug users, sharing a dirty needle while getting a fix, a pleasurable activity to the addicted. In the latter case, the needle user, a clean or sterilized needle can stop that HIV transmission. Getting clean needles is easy; getting the message across that sharing needles is like playing a game of Russian roulette is hard even though with one wrong hit, that’s it. The real problem we are having with HIV/AIDS in our community is getting the right message across about AIDS and the death sentence it carries. And that’s the message we need to get across: HIV/AIDS is a death sentence that an individual imposes upon themselves for a little pleasure. Sex is natural and heterosexual transmission of HIV is one of the primary means by which HIV is being transmittedThat’s why condom use is pushed as the safe sex method of avoiding HIV. However, in our community at least, it is not working. It is not working because many don’t use condoms and, of the users, very few are 100 percent users. Furthermore, of people with HIV, Recording to the CDCP, at least'eight out of 10 HIV carriers don’t know they are carrying the virus. They may not feel any adverse effects until five or 10 years after they have been infectedThat means, looks and feelings both are deceiving. The best bet in this sexual game is to carefully pick a partner and stick with that one partner. Bed-hopping by either can be fatal for both and the child bom of that action. That message is the opposite of the messages that are flowing through our

community through cable TV (including BET), the movies, various other outlets and even our own actions. The “safe sex” through condoms message needs strong fear messages to back it up. Oldheads among us (the pre-birth control pill generation) know that fear of pregnancy kept some young girls chaste and, at the worst, made them be a bit more choosy about bed partners. In those days having an unwanted young one was an unmitigated disaster to the young couple and their parents. It was bad then, but now it is commonplace and is hardly given a second thought by friends and acquaintances of the couple and the couple’s parents. That shows how the formal and informal opinion-making process in a community can change group behavior. To combat this HIV/AIDS problem in our community we need to change the direction of the opinion-making process. Our leaders — church, civic and political — need to get behind the HIV/AIDS fear message and talk about the problerq, let people know why Africans called AIDS the “slim disease," and let them know about AIDS deaths in our community. It makes no sense for the HIV infection rate to be rising in our communities and going down in others. It’s another way we are shortchanging our own future by letting this happen. Our HIV positive young and HIV/AIDS in the 30-40 year old brackets are shut out of being productive members of this economic society. Our future in this society is bleak enough without us adding to that bleakness by our own controllable actions. Let me hear from vou: (916) 961-1859 (V); (916) 961-1596 (FAX); e-mail; eccurtis @ hotmail. com. or 8931 Bluff Lane. Fair Oaks, CA 95628.

By KAI WRIGHT Special to the NNPA DURBAN, South Africa — Darnell Anderson and his wife meet every Sunday. They haven’t lived together for 10 years, but they’re still close friends. Before they got married, Anderson, 45, had considered himself gay. From the time he was 18 years old, he lived what he describes as a “very gay sort of San Francisco, early ’SOs lifestyle.” But then he fell in love with his female friend and got married. They stayed together for three years, and then decided to separate, but not divorce. Since then, he has rejected what he describes as the “gay la-

bel.”

“It really depends on the context I’m in,” Andexsonexplains. “If I’m at work, with mainly white gay men. I’m gay. But myself, I don’t consider myself to be ‘gay.’ I sleep with whoever I sleep with.” Anderson’s perspective is not unusual. Many Black men who have romantic and sexual relationships with other men do not em;ay identity. Some feel that white’men, and prefer terms such as “same-gender-loving M or “in the life” to describe themselves. Others believe that because they only engage in certain sex acts and gender roles with other men — those typically associated with the male in heterosexual relationships — they are not actually homosexual. Still, others are merely closeted, hiding their homosexuality because of fear of stigma and discrimination in the community.

This complicated web of sexual identities creates a rocky terrain for those working in HIV prevention. How can public health officials reach men who are having sex with other men; and provide information on how to have safe sex, if those men do not identify themselves as such? Are the sorts of public education campaigns that already exist for gay men in general appropriate and effective for Black men? These are the questions over 70 people from around the world gathered to discuss last month at the XIII International AIDS Conference in Durban. The answers may be crucial to stemming the tide of HIV. Black and Latino men account for a combined 51 percent of AIDS cases among “men who have sex with men” — the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ’ s term for gay and bisexual men. Black men account for 33 percent of the cases in that category, and 40 percent of new reports of HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — among men who have sex with men. And a 1999 CDC study of men having sex with men between the ages of 15 and 22 in seven cities found that Black gay youth ahe almost five times as likely as their white counterparts to be HIV positive. So despite the popular connection of “gay” with white men. Black men are the ones getting infected in droves. The CDC has declared Black gay men, along with Black women, among the most threatened groups in today’s epidemic, both in society at large and within the AfricanAmerican community.

Thus, reaching these men with safe sex education is crocial to stopping AIDS. But, as Anderson's experience reflects. Black gay men can be among the most difficult to reach. And recent research hints that their invisibility is at least partially related to the disproportionate rates of infection among diem. Two recent CDC studies, for instance, found that significandy more HIV positive Black men who were infected through sex with another man identify themselves as heterosexual than do similar white men. One strategy for solving the problem—embraced by the CDC, global health officials and many AIDS organizations—has been to adopt language such as “men who have sex with men,” addressing behaviors rather than sexual identities in both the terminology and the content of their public education campaigns. Anderson, who is attending the Durban conference and has coordinated prevention programs in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, supports that move and argues that past gay-specific educa-t But at the Durban meeting, several gay men from developing world countries such as India, Guatemala and Zimbabwe objected to the behavior-based approach, arguing that it is important to build sexual identities among men. Others in the U.S. agree. Cornelius Baker, a gay Black man who is the former head of the National Association of People with

What does it take to beat the odds?

Special to The Recorder Today, Ramon could tell you. But when he was 8 years old, his loving mother was brutally murdered and Ramon stopped talking. A year later his father abandoned the family and Ramon and his four older siblings were all placed in separate foster homes. Ramon was assigned to special education classes when he remained withdrawn, and eventually began leaving school most days and aimlessly wandering his neighborhood. But after he was picked up for truancy, a school counselor took an interest in him and saw through his traumatized silence to his intelligence, spirit and potential. She took him out of special education and encouraged him to enter the school’s Academic Decathlon, exactly the encouragement and support Ramon needed. By age 17 Ramon was captain of the Academic Decathlon team that won the California State Championships. He was flooded with scholarship offers and graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., and just this past June, received his doctorate in analytical writing from Princeton University. Ramon was a recipient of the Children's Defense Fund's Beat the Odds award, and the fund is proud of all he continues to accomplish. The fund loves sharing the good news from its Beat the Odds winners. Too often only negative images of today’s youth are seen.

but Beat the Odds winners offer a positive testament to all that is right with the majority of children. Consider another honoree, David. When he was'10, his older brother, who was his revered role model was robbed and murdered on the way home from his parttime job. Two years later David’s mother was diagnosed with a rare di sease that left her paralyzed from the neck down. Shortly afterwards his parents separated and another older brother left home, leaving David as the caregiver for his mother and younger siblings. Not only did David keep his own life on the right track — attending school and getting good grades, but he also invented a therapy system for his mother, giving her daily deep massages and setting a series of goals for her to accomplish (like making a fist). The dean of the medical college at a local university heard about David’s accomplishments and his mother’s progress and flew him to a medical conference to share his techniques with doctors. Today David is a student at California State University at Northridge and plans to pursue a medical career. Martin was a dedicated, softspoken high school student whose teachers and classmates assumed he didn’t have a care in the world. But Martin’s parents were both in and out of jail and rehabilitetion for substance abuse, often at the same time — and so when he was not at school, Martin was the primary caregiver for nine younger siblings. Every morning he got everyone up, fed, dressed, and off to school before taking his own long bus ride

through gang-infested territory to attend 7:30 a.m. basketball practice. After school he did die grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning and cooking and then supervised all of his siblings’ homework before doing his own. In 1995 Martin graduated from Whittier College with both parents and all nine brothers and sisters looking on. Today he teaches social studies at a local middle school. Far too many children in the U.S. have serious odds stacked against them, but in every community there are stories of extraordinary youths like Ramon, David and Martin who are beating those odds and overcoming the tremendous obstacles in their way. There should be a commitment to finding these young people and recognizing and celebrating them for their courage and for being inspirations and role models for everyone. We should also commit to finding the children being overcome every day by the same difficult odds, and provide those children with the resources, attention and support for caring adults they need. The Children's Defense Fund will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of beat the odds in Los Angeles on Oct. 24. It will honor the memory of LeBaron Taylor of Sony Entertainment who was an early and constant supporter of children beating the odds. To learn more about Beat the Odds and sponsoring a Beat the\ Odds event in your community.l call (202) 662-3523.