Blacks With AIDS

Black gay men with AIDS are invisible as far as most of the black press is concerned. Fortunately, Essence magazine doesn't see it that way. In the August 1985 issue, there is a beautifully written, although disturbing, article by Marie Blackwell which details the psychological and physical deterioration of her 36-year-old brother Chet, who eventually died a little over a year after being hospitalized when it was suspected that he had the dreaded disease.

Any African-American who believes, after all this time, that AIDS is a white man's disease, should be required to read this piece, entitled "AIDS in the Family." Blackwell writes that shortly before Chet's death, his body, which had once been "tall, lean, and muscular," had gone down to 98 pounds and "contorted itself into a fetal position--he couldn't straighten his limbs. His eyes were bulging with fear, and he kept the covers over his head the entire time" she visited him in the hospital.

Blackwell confesses that she was "almost totally ignorant about the extent of AIDS contagiousness." If her family had been readers of the Native, a lot of their fear and ignorance after Chet's release from the hospital would have been dispelled. But Chet was fortunate to have a family that loved him enough to be there when he needed them, whether at home or in the hospital.

The family, admits Blackwell, "were angry at him" for being gay because his "choice" of lifestyle had such a profound "impact on all of us." But, "whatever Chet's sexual preference, he was still our big, silly, lovable brother" who, among other things, "cheered us up when we were on punishment."

Jill Nelson's sidebar, "The Facts About AIDS," excellently capsulizes statistical and medical data in nontechnical language. She makes one interesting parenthetical  comment: The discovery of AIDS in Africa "coincided with its discovery in the United States." In other words, there's some doubt in her mind about the African connection.

I wish that Native writer Craig Harris's short story, "Cut Off From Among Their People," which appears in the black gay literary magazine Blackheart 3: The Telling of Us, had been reprinted in the same issue of Essence. It would have given a gay perspective on the disease.

Harris's superb story is about Jeff, a grief-stricken black gay man who attends his lover's funeral and is given the cold shoulder by the family of the deceased. Although Jeff was faithful to his lover, "spending endless hours by his side, covering hospital bills, always keeping [the family] abreast of his condition" while the lover was hospitalized, the family disregarded these acts of love by not asking Jeff for his assistance in making funeral arrangements.


This article was originally published in the New York Native (August 11-25, 1985). It was an item in a "Media Watch" column I wrote for the paper.