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Guest Editorial
Coretta Scott King
Guest Editorial Archives
Friday, February 11, 2005; Page 19
African Americans, Women, HIV and AIDS
Last week people from around the globe commemorated World AIDS Day. We remembered the people who have succumbed to this devastating disease, celebrated the great advances made in treatment over the past twenty years and reflected on the work to be done to eradicate this scourge of humankind.
Worldwide, an unprecedented number of people - nearly 40 million men, women and children - are now living with HIV, according to new figures released by the UNAIDS program. Over 3 million people are expected to die of AIDS this year alone, including half a million children under the age of 15. And every day this year, 13,000 people were infected with HIV.
As the pandemic expands, women are increasingly on the frontlines. Since 2002, the number of women living with HIV has risen in every region of the world, with the sharpest increases occurring in East Asia and Eastern Europe. In sub-Saharan Africa, an alarming 60 percent of HIV-infected adults are now female, and it is estimated that 40 million African children will become orphans in the next decade because of AIDS.
Here in the United States, women are also increasingly affected by HIV/AIDS and race is a major risk factor: African-American women are more than 23 times as likely as White women to be diagnosed with AIDS, and the disease is now the leading cause of death among Black women ages 24 to 35.
I have seen first hand how HIV/AIDS has damaged our community, our families and our children. The disease represents one of the most serious dangers facing African Americans today. It is a threat to our health, our future and our shared goal of achieving true social equality.
African Americans have been working together to fight injustice since the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. First, we battled segregation and economic injustice; then we struggled against violence and drug abuse in our community. Sometimes, it seems like a never ending battle where the enemy keeps changing.
It is tempting to give up in the face of calamity after calamity. But like my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr., we have no intention of ceding in the struggle for social justice - whether it occurs on the streets of Selma or in the maternity wards of American cities, where African American women are 21 times more likely than White women to be infected with HIV.
Strong women are a cornerstone of the African American community. But now we face a disease that is silencing the voice and stilling the hand of those mothers, daughters and sisters who provide so much strength and guidance for our community. If African Americans are to achieve true equality, health and safety in the 21st century, we cannot allow this to continue.
It is time for all of us to take action to protect ourselves and our young people against HIV and AIDS. We can start by challenging the ignorance, bigotry and fear that surrounds this disease. We must acknowledge the widespread misinformation in our community about how HIV is contracted and how it should be treated.
One of the most formidable obstacles to AIDS education in America, as well as other nations, is homophobia, which afflicts people of all races. We need to create a climate that encourages openness and education about AIDS - instead of allowing homophobia, shame and guilt to prevail over reason, understanding and compassion.
Most importantly, we must educate our children about HIV prevention. They need to know that it is okay to talk about AIDS, because illness, like injustice and inequality cannot be eliminated by remaining silent.
African Americans have overcome many obstacles in the struggle for social equality, but we are still in the early days of acknowledging and fighting HIV/AIDS. In meeting this challenge with the same courage, commitment and creativity that empowered our freedom struggle, we can truly overcome.
Coretta Scott King is the founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. |
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