Frontdesk

by David Waggoner

February always seems to be a month we try to hurry through—saddled as it is with the winter blahs, the overlooked President’s Day and the overblown Valentine’s Day, and a spate of television awards shows that all seem to blur into one another. And its twenty-eight, sometimes twenty-nine, days makes it all the more easy to bridge January and March.

But while February may be short on days, it need not be short on reflection. It marks National Black History Month—the perfect occasion to think about the contributions made by African-Americans in the fight against AIDS, but also how AIDS has affected this community of late. Take note: African-Americans make up twelve percent of the U.S. population, yet they make up thirty-eight percent of the AIDS cases reported here in our country since the beginning of the epidemic and forty-nine percent of the cases reported in 2001 alone. According to the CDC, African-Americans account for fifty-four percent of the estimated annual new HIV infections. Anyone still under the impression that AIDS affects mostly white, gay males, or that the pandemic is only flaring in places like sub-Saharan Africa or China needs to wake up.

Actress and comedienne Mo’Nique, this month’s cover story, is part of a growing movement of those who see the need to re-set alarm clocks across the nation. While her comedic timing is flawless, she also knows when it’s time to be dead serious. She knows that AIDS is the leading cause of death for African-American women, ages 23–34, as well as the leading cause of death for African-Americans, ages 25–44. In her conversation with Dann Dulin, she reflects on losing her best friend, Charisse Smith, to AIDS and shares her take on advocacy and education—on her television show, The Parkers, as part of BET’s Rap-It-Up campaign, and wherever people will listen.

And while celebrity AIDS activists and advocates like Magic Johnson, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Danny Glover [A&U, June 2002], Alfre Woodard, P. Diddy, Eve [A&U, May 2002] TLC’s T-Boz and Chilli [A&U, September 2003] might get the lionshare of media attention, there are many working just as hard but who are perhaps not as visible: television producer Mara Brock Akil [A&U, April 2003], civil rights activist Coretta Scott King [A&U, November 2001], writer Maya Angelou [A&U, January 2001], the Reverend Jesse Jackson [A&U, November 2000]and National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS president and CEO Debra Fraser-Howze [A&U, March 2001], to name a few who have graced our pages. And let’s not forget African American AIDS Policy & Training Institute executive director Phill Wilson, activist Rae Lewis-Thorton, former Senator Carol Mosley Braun, Dr. Helene D. Gayle of the CDC, The Balm in Gilead’s Pernessa C. Seele, Rep. Maxine Waters and former Rep. Ron Dellums, and writer Randy Boyd.

This long list of individuals doesn’t do justice to the collective spirit that often energizes the African-American community. National Black History Month isn’t so much about the power of one to make a difference as it is about the power of many. AIDS activism from the start has drawn inspiration and strategies from the civil rights movement. And now it arguably continues to gain strength from a particularly African-American cultural reliance on faith, on family, on freedom. This is what impressed me about Mo’Nique: her reliance on a higher power; her affectionate bond with Zenobia, the mother of Charisse; and her critical eye on the government and the AIDS industry.

So let’s remember those we have lost—Melvin Dixon, Easy E, Arthur Ashe, Max Robinson, Marlon Riggs, Harriet Browne, Assoto Saint—but also take heart that history is not only something in the past but something we make right now.

February 2004