The Black AIDS Institute, HIV/AIDS and Obama

This has been quite a couple of weeks. The outcome of this year’s presidential election adds weight to the feeling that these are among the most exciting times to have ever lived. And I hope we can all take a deep breath and soak it in. A Black President. The “impossibility” of this has for so long been held up as a testament to the racial division in America and the continued locking out (and locking down) of Black folks in this country. That this has come to pass is no small achievement for our country and our world.

But Wednesday didn’t feel too much different from Monday, in real terms. I couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that the realities faced everyday by Black people in this country, or people in this country at large, would not be free of those divisions we’ve known for so long simply as a result of this national decision. There is something to be said for the immense impact the electing of this President is sure to have on the aspirations of people in this country. I have no doubt that a young person’s feeling of “I can do anything…I can be President,” may manifest again and again in their life as, “I can take care of my family,” “I can run this business,” “I can stand up in the face of terrible odds.” I look forward to what this means for the spirits of young people like me who are coming into the ownership of our lives and our times. Heightened spirits lead to heightened aspirations, which may evolve as a deeper determination to take on and resolve the trials of our lives and the world we live them in.

 

I think we would be a thoughtless and crude society to not stop and acknowledge this moment. And I think my colleagues would be mistaken to undercut the real excitement in the air. But I think the most naive thing progressive folks could do, would be to think for a second that success in our mission, or in the overall mission of human justice and equality, will take one ounce less of our energy, our spirit, and our conviction now. In fact, I posit that it will take even more of those intangibles than we have previously been able to muster.

 

The Black AIDS Institute sees the issue of ending the AIDS epidemic in Black America as fundamentally a question of mobilizing Black communities to change their reality. The Institute is guided by the strong belief that until Black people collectively take ownership over the epidemic and dispense with the notion that it is not their problem, Black folks will continue to become infected with HIV and die from AIDS at outrageous rates. And that belief is couched within an acknowledgement that the resource engine of American public health is not working for Black people in the way it needs to be. We can expect—or at least hope—that the new administration will facilitate a slightly more favorable context for our work (i.e., increased funding, a national AIDS strategy, elevated profile of the issues). But it would be a mistake to believe that the new President will automatically follow our lead and devote all the resources needed to end the AIDS epidemic in Black America. Phill Wilson has been know to say things to the effect of, “The government is not coming to save Black people. It never has. So it is on our community to mobilize and take up this fight ourselves.”

Well, if I may: President-Elect Obama is probably not coming to save Black people. So it is on the community to mobilize and continue to take up this fight. There will no doubt be many folks, Black and white, believing he will. Or that his presidency will reduce the burden of social change which has always been borne by the community. Or that things are different now and the big problems will eventually work themselves out. We will need to not only fight the battles we’ve been fighting, but will need to resist this sort of apathy of optimism.  Read More.