Obama takes HIV/AIDS test in Kenya. And you?
US Senator Barack Obama is visiting his father’s home country Kenya this week. While receiving a heroes welcome, Obama is also taking a highly noteworthy step by publicly undergoing an AIDS test. As the world knows, Africa suffers from astronomical AIDS rates as compared to the rest of the planet. Perhaps many Kenyans will be inspired by his example and get tested.
Moreover, I hope his efforts will affect some people here in the US. The African American community in particular is ravaged by AIDS. Yet many folks continue to hide from this reality. In my discussions with numerous black professionals, including professors, I have met many who have never had an AIDS test AND who do not use condoms either.
Perhaps we need to replicate Obama’s efforts and hold a similar event at the annual conventions of our various black organizations including the sororities, fraternities, National Bar Association, National Medical Association, NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, and others. If the heads of these organizations took the test would it influence their predominantly affluent successful membership?
Who will lead the way??
Comments
Maybe we should start in the homophobic Black churches. Start by ending the hate speech from the pulpit against gays and people who have diseases associated (wrongly) with gays. People have no problem taking a test for diabetes, but turn their noses up at the thought of taking a test for HIV. Why? Because Blacks have been taught that it is a gay disease and being gay is evil. The truth of the matter is that it is a blood borne and sexually transmitted disease that has nothing to do with sexual orientation--particularly in the Black community (where, of course, nobody is gay!). The same bible thumping Black women who make snide remarks against gays are now being infected with HIV by their "straight" boyfriends. How ironic is that?! How sad.
Posted by: cmoney | August 26, 2006 04:47 PM
Once again right on cmoney!The black church could be instrumental in providing both testing and counselling,but who wants the double whammy of a positive result AND a condeming counsel? The church response to this issue has been woefully inadequate.
Posted by: W.R.Y. | August 26, 2006 06:19 PM
http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/news_14bbbd689569614000ef.html
But we can't give black churches a monopoly on homophobia. White churches are just as bad. So if both blacks and white are all getting homophobic religious indoctrination, why is the "African American community in particular is ravaged by AIDS?"
Posted by: Jo | August 26, 2006 08:12 PM
Hi, I'm a Kenyan, and I admire Barack Obama and his achievements. All the same, the HIV test thing struck me as both contrived and condescending. I doubt it'll have any great effect one way or the other.
Posted by: cirdan | August 27, 2006 11:26 AM
Jo,Jo,Jo...Not ALL white churches preach homophobia. Just the fundies usually. And blacks as a whole have limited access to PREVENTITIVE HEALTHCARE by virtue of lack of insurance.Since any meaningful sex education has been removed from classrooms, save ofcourse abstinence only, no help is coming from the schools in that regard.Also free condom distribution has been severely curtailed in the US south,an area particularly hard hit by this scourge.So to answer your question blacks are hardest hit by this scourge due to ignorance(by both policy makers and themselves),economics and limited health care.
Posted by: W.R.Y. | August 27, 2006 01:06 PM
I would also add, Jo, that the church leaders in the Black community are far more influential than White pastors are in the White community. I've heard of Black churches that refuse to hold funerals for members who were gay or died of AIDS. It's that bad. I don't doubt that there are homophobic White churches, but there is no stronger institution in the Black community. Fixing the hate problems in the Black church would go a long way towards helping resolve this crisis.
Posted by: cmoney | August 27, 2006 07:45 PM
"Fixing the hate problems in the Black church would go a long way towards helping resolve this crisis."
Why bother "fixing" the church? Just ignore it. You don't need it anyway. Haven't black folks spent enough time being told what to do by someone else?
Thank God I'm an atheist. :)
Posted by: Jo | August 27, 2006 08:13 PM
Kenya has stepped up criticism of US Senator Barack Obama, accusing him of insulting the Kenyan people and trivializing their achievements during a visit to his father’s homeland.Two days after abruptly changing its tone on Obama, who had been welcomed as a returning hero but incurred official wrath with blistering criticism of corruption and ethnic divisions, Nairobi launched a new attack on the lawmaker Thursday.
Less than 24 hours after the rising US political star left Kenya to continue an African tour, government spokesman Alfred Mutua blasted Obama for choosing “to dwell on non-issues” in a nationally televised speech on Monday.
“Senator Obama made extremely disturbing statements on issues which it is clear, he was very poorly informed, and on which he chose to lecture the government and the people on how they should manage their country,” he said.
Mutua said the government would write a formal protest to the junior senator from Illinois who he suggested had falsely claimed his trip to Africa was intended to “nuture relations between the continent and the United States.”
Noting the government had “spared no effort in making his stay and travel … enjoyable and fulfilling,” Mutua said Obama’s criticism of President Mwai Kibaki’s administration was unfair, unwarranted and unjustified by facts.
He said Obama was wrong in asserting that Rwandan genocide fugitive Felicien Kabuga had bought protection in Kenya, that graft had plunged the country into “crisis” and that dangerous tribal divisions were on the rise.
Obama’s comment about Kabuga “is an insult to the people of this country,” Mutua said, adding he had “ignored” accomplishments in fighting corruption and boosting economic growth from near zero to six percent in three years.
“This cannot be achieved in a country, which Senator Obama says, is experiencing a corruption crisis,” he said, before slamming the lawmaker for allegedly “trivializing” Kenya’s ethnic harmony and “magnifying tribalism.”
“Senator Obama enjoyed the vibrant freedom of expression and wide democratic space in this country during his tour,” Mutua said. “Instead of acknowledging this… he chose to dwell on non-issues.”
A day after Obama’s stinging speech at the University of Nairobi, Mutua dismissed the lone African-American in the Senate and potential Democratic Party presidential nominee as “immature” and an opposition stooge.
But his harsh comments on Thursday marked a new escalation in animosity between the government and Obama, who left Kenya late Wednesday
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Posted by: topicstarter | October 16, 2006 12:48 PM