Your Black Health: Stop Saying I’m Diseased! - Pearl Jr.

Stop Saying I’m Diseased!

By: Pearl Jr.

As a Black woman, I'm so sick and tired of every time there is a media story about HIV/AIDS, a Black woman is featured predominately front and center. For example, Black In America, which was watched by nearly 5 million people in CNN’s two-day airing, dedicated nearly the entire HIV/AIDS segment enforcing the poster person to be a Black female, but there are numerous other examples.

Making a Black female the face of HIV/AIDS is a radical form of racism at its highest level and more proof that there is a conspiracy to keep Black women without love. This image of Black women creates more negative stereotypes that Black women are diseased and along with being loud, fat, bitches and hos, who are overbearing, booty-bouncing, undesirable she-men, no wonder Black women are the least married; sadly unbeknown, Black Women Need Love, Too! (www.BlackWomenNeedL oveToo.com)

The trickery to take the stigma of HIV/AIDS from being a White male homosexual disease to being a Black female heterosexual disease is consistent with racism in America. I cannot allow this type of deliberate prejudice to continue, especially since this is a big fallacy and here’s why:

According to http://www.medicaln ewstoday. com/articles/ 113244.php , the fastest growing group of HIV/AIDS cases TODAY are young Black males between the ages of 13-24, which is quite upsetting since I'm the mother of a 13 year old son to whom I tell NOT to ever have backdoor sex, with a boy or a girl, because that high risk behavior is very likely to cost you your health and ultimately, your life. This is advice that must be spread wide and far to lessen the number of infections in the Black community and worldwide among all groups of people.

The latest so-called breakdown of HIV/AIDS infections (figuring in one of four who are undiagnosed, of course, the vast majority being added to the Black heterosexual tally) is as follows (www.cdc.gov ): 53 percent is homosexual and bi-sexual men, and trip this, 4 percent homosexual men that inject drugs, why not just say 57 percent?? Thirty one percent is high-risk heterosexual sex, which is code for backdoor sex. Ladies, DO NOT allow this even with a condom because condoms break easier in the anus than in the front door, and twelve percent is injection drug use. These are all the main transmission routes of such a deadly disease. Over 80 percent of women with HIV/AIDS got it from heterosexual high-risk sex.

Since the beginning of this epidemic (circa 1981) through 2005, only 19 percent of all HIV/AIDS diagnosis has been women and a mere 16 percent of women have died from this dreadful disease. In other words, 81 percent of all diagnosis is MEN and 84 percent of all AIDS deaths have been men. http://www.cdc. gov/hiv/topics/ women/resources/ factsheets/ women.htm# 3

HIV/AIDS is NOT a female disease! Black women have NEVER encompassed the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases—the quote was “Black women are the FASTEST growing group of HIV/AIDS”, which is no longer true, meaning Black women were growing in numbers fastest, but are not the most. Then why are Black women positioned predominately everywhere when this virus is discussed? The answer is RACISM and MISOGYNY at its finest.

Taking all this into consideration, backdoor sex accounts for nearly 82 percent of all transmission routes, but it seems everyone is afraid to tell the truth. I suppose, it’s easier to let people continue to contract and spread this disease and die? Ladies, common sense demands we stop booty-bouncing, booty posturing, and laughing at butt jokes, because this is not funny, people are dying!

I would like to remind everyone that I posted the high risk of backdoor sex on myspace.com blog over a year ago. I also contacted the Magic Johnson Foundation to alert the public about the huge hazard of backdoor sex, but of course, too many of us are more interested in being politically correct than telling the life-saving truth. Also, while conducting an interview on a popular blogtalkradio. com show, I was shocked and amazed by the arrogance of ignorance in regards to the dangers of backdoor sex. The response was my interview was banned because too many refused to acknowledge truth, and consistent with a popular mindset, defensiveness was the result. Lastly, I asked a friend, who is a gay activist (no confirmed cases of women to women or lesbian contraction of the virus) to help spread the word about the dangers of backdoor sex. I was told she couldn’t believe that people didn’t know the dangers of backdoor sex. Well, isn’t that quite obvious, due to the alarming rates of HIV/AIDS cases.

The arrogance of ignorance is mind-blowing, along with the fear associated with telling the hard-to-hear- truth is very disappointing and cowardly. Plus, it is like being an accomplice to murder for all the HIV/AIDS agencies to withhold the truth from the masses, when the obvious culprit (backdoor sex) is being hidden from the public at large.

So, I’m asking all of you to spread the word that RECEPTIVE BACKDOOR SEX is THE riskiest form of sex, whether performed on a male or female, and backdoor sex has at least a 50 times higher transmission rate than penis and vaginal sex. Plus, it is 500 times harder for women to spread this disease to men than it is for men to give it to women (deposit of teaspoons of semen vs. small slit in penis for fluid transfer). http://www.sfcitycl inic.org

Of course, AN ANSWER is using condoms, but it is not safe sex--only SAFER sex. Abstinence without injection drug use is the best way to stay clear of HIV/AIDS, but the species must continue via heterosexual front door sex, so let’s have safer responsible committed sex with someone to whom we know loves, honors, and cherishes us enough to NEVER cheat.

Also, it has been brought to my attention; males as well as females are participating in backdoor sex as an exchange for vaginal sex to prevent pregnancy. It's so very unfortunate that too many people don't understand the dangers of backdoor sex, which is much more deadly than getting pregnant. It’s safe to assume, they use no protection.

BTW, the number one cause of death for Black women between the ages of 24-35 is HIV/AIDS, so ladies you have been warned! The fact is, too many Black women are having too much backdoor sex. Black males have told me they didn’t know that a Booty-Call meant front door sex, so they went for the backdoor thinking it was the “in” thing to do. And Ladies, when dealing with men who have served time in jail, do not have any sex with them until you KNOW they don’t have HIV/AIDS by getting tested.

Everyone must participate in educating our family members, friends, and associates with this life-saving article. Without HIV/AIDS, young Black women would be among the healthiest.

www.BlackWomenNeedL oveToo.com

Pearl Jr. is an author, activist, journalist and producer. She is is a member of the National Academy of Media Arts & Sciences. She has authored three books, one documentary and has successfully ran four websites (award-winning) and serves as the founder and owner of Elbow Grease Productions (EGP) and Pearl Jr. Publications. She is best known for her work in the African-American community. She is a long-time activist. As an activist, Pearl Jr. has successfully challenged major corporations to respect the Black community, she has protested and forced major corporations such as Nissan Motors, Ebay, and the NAACP to change their ways to better represent a positive image for African-Americans. Pearl Jr. has also leads the charge consistently against negative rap music. She writes widely published articles such as, "The Rap Crap Treason Act" and "The Golddigger lie leads to Black Male Failure," which has awaken the sleepy giant in the hearts and minds of the Black public. She runs the websites: TRUtalk.us, MichaelJacksonInsider.com, and BlackWomenNeedLoveToo.com

Your Black Life: Unspeakable History - Peniel E. Joseph

By Peniel E. Joseph,

an assistant professor of Africana studies at SUNY Stony Brook and the author of "Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America"
Tuesday, March 27, 2007; Page C02

THE N WORD

Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why

By Jabari Asim

Houghton Mifflin. 278 pp. $26

In an era when high-profile rappers, comedians and public intellectuals craft contorted defenses for the use of the word "nigger," Jabari Asim's "The N Word" provides an important, timely and much-needed critical intervention about this enduringly controversial subject. Beyond a simple discussion of the word itself, Asim deftly chronicles the way in which racist ideology went hand-in-hand with racist culture to permanently alter -- and stain -- the character of America's nascent democracy.

Asim's book is an ambitious, sweeping work that surveys four centuries of racist culture and custom in American society. From the outset, the term in question was a convenient, all-purpose condemnation that allowed such architects of American democracy as Thomas Jefferson to claim that blacks lacked the intellectual and emotional capacity to handle full citizenship. In Jefferson's words, blacks were "inferior to the whites in endowments both of body and mind." A veritable industry of scientific and cultural racism would make Jefferson's sentiments seem positively statesmanlike.

At each step of this sprawling, briskly paced history, Asim chronicles the way in which the word not only permeated popular culture through literary classics such as "Huck Finn" but had practical, real-world consequences, especially during the post-Reconstruction period of anti-black lynching, violence and rioting that swept across the nation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Asim, the deputy editor of The Washington Post's Book World section, documents how black Americans countered the dominant narrative perpetuated by "Niggerology"(as one "scholar" of black inferiority labeled it in the 19th century) with nuanced accounts of historical figures such as the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells. Asim explores how, in the 1940 novel "Native Son," Richard Wright turned the word, and much of the literary world, upside down through his character Bigger Thomas, whose very name seemed to suggest the N-word. Bigger Thomas's unpredictable violence transformed the one-dimensional literary characters of the past (the imagined spooks of a racist literary tradition) into a hauntingly poignant emissary of social misery whose tragic actions illuminated the contours of racial oppression in Depression-era America.

The civil rights movement's heroic decade, between the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 and passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, seemed to signal the slow demise of the word in popular culture. No longer could respectable Southern politicians use the blunt, coarse and spectacularly successful language of someone like George Wallace.

But by the late 1960s and early '70s, blacks began openly using the term themselves. At the very moment when civil rights victories meant the word could no longer be spoken in public by whites, black provocateurs started to brandish the word like a sharp sword. The comedian Richard Pryor said it with an easy candor that scandalized white audiences and helped him emerge as a kind of outrageous prophet whose use of the word managed to sting whites more than blacks. The casual, everyday use of the word in black communities that had been a hidden part of a segregated past now became an accepted part of popular culture. The genie, so to speak, had been let out of the bottle, with predictable results. A generation of multi-hued youngsters now eagerly deploys the word in everyday language that betrays no hint of historical understanding of its horrific roots.

Asim tells this story with energy, insight and well-timed flashes of humor. "The N Word" also serves, both implicitly and explicitly, as a brilliant and bracing history lesson for the countless pundits debating the virtues of black popular culture. Unlike many commentators, Asim manages to avoid both facile condemnations and contorted rationalizations. Instead, he offers a passionate survey that places contemporary African American culture in the larger context of American history. Confronted by a generation largely uninterested in the nation's collective racial history but still burdened by its legacy, Asim argues that only by understanding the past can we reacquire the political courage and insights necessary to create new words and envision new worlds. "As long as we embrace the derogatory language that has long accompanied and abetted our systematic dehumanization," Asim writes, "we shackle ourselves to those corrupt white delusions -- and their attendant false story of our struggle in the United States. Throwing off those shackles would at least free us to stake a claim to an independent imagination." And, just perhaps, renew our hope in shaping a better world.

Your Black World Speaks With Dr. Ricky Jones On Issues Of Concern

Interview with University of Louisville Professor, Dr. Ricky Jones, by Tolu Olorunda.

Dr. Ricky Jones is an Author, Columnist and a Professor at the University of Louisville. He is the Chair of Pan-African Studies at the University of Louisville. He has written several books including, "Black Haze: Violence, Sacrifice, and Manhood in Black Greek-Letter Fraternities," and the more recent "What's Wrong with Obamamania?: Black America, Black Leadership, and the Death of Political Imagination." He is also a Lecturer who has spoken courageously on the neutralization of Africanism and Pan-Africanism in the European landscape. On Barack Obama, Dr. Jones believes that the Senator hasn't quite paralleled the standards and criteria set by the legacies of Martin Luther King, Kwame Ture and Malcolm X. He also laments the reality that some black people might be missing the point with a blind and unconditional support for Senator Obama's candidacy. His newest book - on Obamamania - investigates the unhealthy celebration and craze that has clouded the Obama campaign, while tendering useful and applicable resources that strengthen the structure of governmental-accountability. I had the pleasure of engaging in dialogue with Dr. Jones on Black Leadership, Obamamania, Black Politics, Black Masculinity and much more:

Thanks for joining us, Dr. Jones. Can you begin by informing us of your background and the pathway leading up to becoming one of the State of Kentucky's most prestigious professors?

I don't know if I'm one of the state's most prestigious; but I grew up in the housing projects of Atlanta, Georgia. After High-School, I got a bachelor's degree in political science from Morehouse College, and then received a fellowship-offer from the University of Kentucky - where I met Boyce Watkins. But I went to UK (Kentucky) for graduate school, and got a PH.D in political philosophy, and then left in 1996 for Louisville -- where I joined the Pan-African study department, and I have been there ever since. It’s funny because I really didn't intend to stay there, but I ended up in a really good department with some really good people, and had a lot of opportunities, and ended up becoming the youngest 'chair' in the history of the department -- a term which I just finished.

In your opinion, what is fundamentally wrong with today's Black leadership, and how radically different is it from that of Malcolm & Martin's era?

Well, a couple of things: One; the social and political dynamic is very different now, than it was in the past. We are now in a time when we are the first generation of Black folk who did not have to deal with slavery or segregation. And, I think it threw Black America into a state of confusion vis-a-vis understanding power-discrepancies, segregation, discrimination, marginalization etc. And just because those systems weren't in law anymore, didn't mean it did not exist. And with that change in the political landscape, people are not clear anymore, as to whether or not we have a structural problem, or we have merely individual problems. So with the comments of the "Bill Cosbys" and "Shelby Steeles," (The Black Conservatives) it becomes more easy to put the blame on Black people, individually, than to attack structures -- especially if you're trying to gain power in those structures. So, there is a misunderstanding of the political landscape. Also, there is a problem with the quality of leadership. Sometimes, we do not have our best and brightest in position. Another problem is that of commitment, especially when you have folk that are much more wedded to their personal agendas, than they are with any collective agenda that has to do with Black folk. When you put all those things together, you have a horrible mixture that leads the majority of Black people suffering.

In light of the recent conundrum Rev. Jesse has been encompassed by; do you find any legitimacy in the inference that a leader can become outdated and irrelevant?

Yes, but not specific to Rev. Jackson. I think, sometimes, if not the leadership figure itself, the strategy can become outdated -- and again, not being specific to Rev. Jackson. I've been critical of Rev. Jackson with regard to certain issues, and I criticize him in my latest book, but I think the latest criticism of him - with what has been said - is patently wrong. I think it is problematic for Black to dismiss Rev. Jackson at this point. In my latest book, I discussed that 'shift' in the generations. I think it is true that the younger Black leadership is different, but we also ought to question, if the shift is better -- and that question is not necessarily being asked. I also think that style of leadership is embraced by much of white America because it is looked upon as safer, and sometimes more "white-like." One of the first line of my latest book is, I'm Black and I worry about my people," and the last line is, "in the mean-time, I'll still be here worrying," because I'm very worried about Black America's willingness to embrace some of these unknown quantities in a non-critical way, and dismiss folk who have a long history of service to the Black Community. When you look at the antagonism toward Jesse Jackson, it's disturbing; also, with regard Tavis Smiley -- where a large number of Black people turned on him and called him some of the most reprehensible names. What's most disturbing is the fact that Black people are reacting this way, in support of a man who, 4 yrs. ago, excluding Chicagoans, was nearly unknown. And the fact that, till this date, he still hasn't shown that he has any level of commitment to any particular agenda that has anything to do with remedying Black struggle; he is much more likely to condemn black folks, than he is to condemn systemic mechanism that are beating up Black folk.

You wrote a book in critique and cross-examination of Sen. Obama's explosive rise to the front-and-center of American political life. Can you explain "What's wrong with Obamamania"?

Concisely, there are 4 basic things: One is that the examination of Obama and his significance has been relatively immature. You have a side that paints him as a savior and Messianic figure, and others who hope to label him as an Islamic terrorist. And that dichotomization doesn't leave room for rich political discussion. Secondly, there is very little serious-examination of what Obama means on the leadership landscape -- for Black America in particular and America in general. And when he is compared to Dr. Martin Luther King, we have to understand that Dr. King never represented the status quo, and sadly, Obama seems to be comfortable doing that. Thirdly, with Obama's avoidance of issues concerning Black America, we would be foolish not to ask for as much as other groups are demanding of Senator Obama. The Jewish Community asked Obama - and other candidates - where he stood explicitly on the issue of Jerusalem, Palestine, and other issues. Black people must be brave enough to ask the same questions: Disproportionate Imprisonment, the educational system, disproportionate poverty - with a third of Black children being impoverished etc. And if we are concerned about those issues, we should take him to task on each one of them, and we have not. Fourthly, most Black supporters are much too eager to attack anyone who criticizes Senator Obama or his agenda -- which is dangerous, in giving him a free pass.

Malcolm X, in his April 12, 1964 speech "The Ballot or The Bullet," called for political maturity within the Black Community. In your assessment; has there been any political-maturation in Black America, and is it - or the lack - reflective in the overwhelming support of Sen. Obama's candidacy within the African-American Community?

Well; to answer bluntly, we are certainly showing some political immaturity. I also think it shows a division with the Black petty bourgeoisie and everyday black folks. Come election time, I would be voting "against McCain," because I have been disturbed by the lack of serious-public-balanced-dialogue in Black America -- concerning the good things he (Obama) brings to the table, as well as the bad.

Masculinity in Black America is another subject you have written greatly about. How does that paradigm play out in Hip-Hop culture and the daily lives of everyday Black families?

Well, this goes to my first book: "Black Haze: Violence, Sacrifice, and Manhood in Black Greek-Letter Fraternities." And the big question is: What happens to a group of men who are denied traditional avenues to being labeled as Men. I'm referring to, 'going to better schools,' 'getting the better jobs,' 'being able to earn salaries that are conducive with supporting and protecting their families.' So, how do they define their Manhood, if those traditional routes that guarantee the definition of Manhood are denied to them? And I see that phenomenon playing out of Black America in so many ways. It plays out in Black fraternities - with Greek Origin - as well; and some of the barbarism that plays out in some of these fraternities puts the Manhood of these young men on trial. And the only way they seem to define their Manhood, is through the infliction of pain, stress or the tolerance of it. You also have the same dynamic playing out in the gang-culture. We have to figure out where all this factors - of the destructive definition of Masculinity - lead up to. And it plays out from education, to the home-environment, to poverty, to political disenfranchisement, to the criminal justice system and even toward mental health issues. So, I'm very concerned about Black Males interaction with society, with fellow Black Males and finally, their Women.

You teach Pan-Africanism and color-consciousness as a Professor at the University of Louisville. Do you suspect a loss of cultural-pride amongst the upcoming generation of Black and Brown kids?

Most definitely, but I think it stretches-through, to all of us. Because, you never see anybody else - for the most part - run away from their ethnicity and race -- as much as Black people do. Many Black people see their heritage as a badge of shame -- as a result of our socialization in this country. And there seems to be very little commitment to anything deemed patently Black. And it’s also playing out in this election cycle, because if one speaks of Obama as being Black, his supporters ask the question: "Why you got to bring 'race' into it"?

In Georgetown Professor, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson's book, Race Rules, he has a section on the 20th century rise of the Black public intellectual. As one yourself, what do you consider to be the primarily-role of the Black public intellectual in America?

Well, it should be, ideally, to be able to translate classroom academicism, and put it to the public, streets or television. So, it's incredibly important that we don't have these conversations limited to the college campuses. The intellectual must be able to convey to the public, certain values that the public understands.

Lastly, what advice do you have for the new generation of Black intellectuals and academicians?

Well, it must be to carve out our own path, and stay true to some set of ideals. At the end of the day, we are teachers, and the fundamental question is: What are we going to teach? I think a lot of folk see the public intellectual route as a track towards stardom, but the ideal that one is committed to, the ability to change the life-worth of Black people, and the will to improve the conditions of Black people with writing, speaking and advocacy, is most important. The new generation of Black public intellectuals should also look out for one another, and take care of each other.

Watch Dr. Ricky Jones's Interview on, The CW Louisville Live This Morning:

This interview was conducted by Tolu Olorunda, Staff Writer for YourBlackWorld.com