Today is National HIV Testing Day. Phill Wilson, founder and executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, recently wrote:
On Monday, June 12, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that African Americans represent about half of all people living with HIV in the country. Half! We’re only 13 percent of the population. We already knew three quarters of new female infections are among African American women, who are getting HIV largely through sex.
It gets worse. CDC also revealed a study—the first in a series that the agency hopes will give us unprecedented specifics about the number and nature of HIV infections in America—suggesting that half of all Black homosexual and bisexual men are already positive.
Meanwhile, improvements we once saw among youth are reversing. After declining by 30 percent throughout the 1990s, the number of new HIV infections among young men of all races shot up 41 percent between 1999 and 2003.
For more than two decades now, AIDS activists have rightly asserted that this is not just any other disease. It’s a virus that preys upon the most marginalized in our society. As a result, infection continues to carry great deals of stigma. It is, after all, a sexually transmitted disease, and one that is most likely to affect those who are having anal sex or using drugs.
But on June 12 we entered a new era. We can no longer afford to trifle with the politics of America’s culture wars, whether they come from the left or the right. It is time that everyone, particularly African Americans, take responsibility for this monster’s longevity. Individuals, community organizers and policymakers must all begin to hold themselves accountable.
As individuals, two things are clear. First, every African American who does not know whether he or she is HIV positive or negative has the ability to find out. Free, confidential testing is available in any every part of this country. Go find out your status. Be accountable.
Second, everyone of us who know we are HIV positive have the ability to stop the virus’ spread, to not allow ourselves to be a link in the insidious chain. Similarly, everyone who is negative has the ability to stay that way, by taking responsibility for your own health. Be accountable.
For the location of a testing site near you, click here.