Black churches should speak out about AIDS
AIDS isn't just a pandemic killing people in Africa, China, India and Russia. HIV/AIDS is a problem throughout America. Focusing on it during Black History Month is imperative. More attention will follow in March during the Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS. The disease threatens to change the future for blacks unless it is stopped. HIV/AIDS is causing devastation, pain, misery and death. But people with it largely suffer in silence because of inaction from churches and groups that could offer comfort, help and ways to keep the disease from spreading. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2002 blacks accounted for 50 percent of the 42,000 diagnoses of HIV/AIDS cases even though they made up only 13 percent of the population. Of the 385,714 people living with AIDS, 42 percent are black. Black churches have the power of the pulpit, which should be used to address these concerns. But churches stubbornly remain mostly silent on HIV/AIDS. Now is a critical time. In 2000, HIV/AIDS was one of the top three causes of death for black men ages 25-54 and black women ages 35-44. Black women had a 23 times greater diagnoses rate than white women, and black men had an almost nine times greater rate than white men. Unprotected sex was the leading cause of infection. [more]