By Kenyon Farrow

It’s ironic how black folks have a way of speaking volumes, and at the same time, saying nothing. The trick of language-the fashioning of one language into two-has served us through the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow, when the there was no safe place to give voice to unutterable suffering. Or when it was important to keep quiet about impending rebellion and to protect members of the community from white mob violence.

Kenyon Farrow of KenyonFarrow.com

Historically, the art of not speaking has facilitated our mere survival.

But 28 years into the AIDS epidemic, that silence that once protected us, is now killing us. As we near Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on February 7th, all sorts of pronouncements will be made about the devastation HIV/AIDS is having on the community. And though we are disproportionately impacted by the epidemic, concern for black men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women will not likely come from most quarters of the community. If black leadership is at all concerned with ending this epidemic, we’re going to have to acknowledge and overcome the homophobia that is driving it in the community.

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the United States had over 56,000 new infections in 2006. While this may not seem like a huge number, this revision also included a back-calculation revealing that for the 15 years from 1991-2006, infection rates were approximately 25-50 percent higher than the 40,000 annual cases previously estimated. More stunning, it found the number of new infections of black MSM ages 13-29 to be the highest of all MSM groups. This mirrors a 2005 study that showed 46% of all black MSM to be HIV-positive across five major U.S. cities.

Even though CDC officials are typically conservative in its public statements, CDC behavioral scientist Greg Millett recently stated that black MSMs are the only group in the U.S. with HIV rates similar to some sub-Saharan African nations. Just yesterday, the CDC released a report showing an increase in new infections among black MSMs in Jackson, Mississippi. On a conference call discussing this study, CDC officials stated that many of the men who tested HIV-positive noted feelings of isolation and commented on the lack of places to be openly gay and discuss their specific concerns.

These statements aren’t surprising, as many black institutions refuse to talk about black MSM or transgender women as community members we should be concerned about-related to HIV or at all. Last summer at the International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Mexico City, I listened to a delegation of journalists from black press outlets ask questions at a press conference hosted by the Black AIDS Institute. Nearly all of them who asked questions of the panel, began their questions with saying “I am not talking about black gay men or MSM…”

While the rest of the people at IAC-from countries as diverse and far-reaching as Chile and Burundi-were strategizing on how to address the specific needs of MSMs and other marginalized groups greatly impacted by HIV, many African-American delegates were trying to exclude that very population from their own conversations.

These types of hostility, omission and stigma can unfortunately make some black gay men feel forced to also hide their own HIV-status. Just last summer, two colleagues of mine who lived in New York City died of AIDS complications. Both were black gay men and both had been active in the black gay community here as artists and service providers. And yet, when notices of their passing were sent out into the community over email and list servs, they were carefully crafted to say that the men’s deaths were a result of “severe complications from a long-term illness” as opposed to actually naming the disease.

Yet, gay or straight, one of the problems we all face is that we believe we deserve the disease burden that is handed to us. We buy into the notion that we are pathological and accept the myths that we are more promiscuous, have more unprotected sex and use more drugs than white gay men. But a 2007 study by Millet shows that while black gay men have similar or fewer risk factors than white gay men, they have twice the HIV rates of their white counterparts. Even still, promiscuity is no reason to remain silent or complacent about an incurable, often debilitating illness.

If we continue to allow fear and ignorance to stop us from talking about HIV in relation to black gay men, then we as a community aren’t really serious about ending HIV. Because this silence lends credence to the notion that we, as black people, believe that only some of us are worth saving. And if we continue to keep quiet, as black lesbian and feminist writer Barbara Smith once said, “We must always bury our dead twice.”

Kenyon Farrow is a Fellow with the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute, and National Public Education Director with Queers for Economic Justice. He blogs at www.kenyonfarrow.com.