AIDS in the Circle City

The Racial Divide

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              Addressing the problem of the racial imbalance in the AIDS rate is a sticky situation.  As it stands, the black, not Hispanic cumulative AIDS rates are two, three, or even five times the AIDS rates of their white counterparts.  This massive disparity between the races is something that is distressing, to say the least.   In Indiana, the AIDS rate among black people is three times what it is for white people.  This indicates that there is an increasing problem in the black community.  Marion County faces a similar issue with the rate among the black population being twice what it is for the white population.  In Indiana and Marion County, these numbers are even more disturbing as the percentage of the population of Marion County that is black is only 25% and the number for Indiana is even smaller.  Because these populations are so small and the rates so high, it is easy to infer that the epidemic among the black men and women in Marion County, as well as Indiana and the United States as a whole, is getting out of control.

              However, with the black community, it is not as easy as just “speaking out” against unsafe sex practices and sharing needles.  Because many of the men in the black community who have sex with other men do not identify as “gay” or “homosexual,” it is very difficult to target literature, TV ads, or internet sites to MSM.  Most often, MSM are automatically labeled as “gay” or “homosexual.”  Black MSM are considered to be on the “down-low.”  Targeting prevention literature to only men who self-identify as gay or homosexual would be missing quite a bit of the men who are infected.  In a study conducted by Darrell P. Wheeler of Hunter College, 23 black MSM answered questions and filled out surveys to indicate the type of sexual risks they were taking.  They did not use “gay as a label…[to] fit their view of themselves.”[1]  In realizing this, it is necessary to spread HIV/AIDS awareness information not only though gay websites and gay bars, but through heterosexual channels as well.  Although there are many commercials on TV about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, most refer to “global AIDS,” the kind that affects Africans, not our own citizens.

              The heterosexual transmission among black people has the highest rate of any other race.  At 105.7, it is the highest by far, with the Hispanic population coming it at a distant 32.2.[1]  Therefore, it is crucial that something be done about this.  There is no actual evidence to support the theory that black men on the “down-low” are the main cause of heterosexual transmission in the black population, but it stands to reason so.  Many DL black men will have unsafe sex with another man and then return home to his girlfriend, fiancé, wife and have sex with her without the use of a condom.  According to a study done in the Journal of Health Communication, in magazines specifically targeted to black men and women, the “vulnerability of Black women is also highlighted, particularly beacsue of the risk behaviours [sic] of Black men, such as drug use and bisexual activity.”[2]  In the Indianapolis Star from June 6, 2006, an article was written called “The Changing Face of AIDS” addressing the very problem of the fact that the epidemic is changing from a mainly gay white MSM problem to a more general heterosexual black male and female problem.  In Indiana alone, more black women are living with HIV/AIDS than white women, 729 to 615 respectively.[3]