"To me, it's a dangerous cop-out. I get that it's sexy. I get that it's hot to see some big burly hip-hop kid who looks straight but sleeps with guys, but the bottom line is that it's dishonest. I think you have to love who you are, you have to have respect for yourself and others, and to me most men on the DL have none of those qualities. There's nothing 'sexy' about getting H.I.V., or giving it to your male and female lovers. That's not what being a real black man is about."
"Mainstream gay culture has created an alternative to mainstream culture. Many whites take advantage of that. They say, 'I will leave Podunk and I will go to the gay barrios of San Francisco and other cities, and I will go live there, be who I really am, and be part of the mainstream.' Many African-Americans say, 'I can't go and face the racism I will see there, and I can't create a functioning alternative society because I don't have the resources.' They're stuck."
"Up to this point, we've failed to make a convincing case to young black men about why they should listen to us when we tell them to put on a condom, mostly because we've had the wrong people delivering the wrong kind of message. The usual prevention message for all these years can be interpreted as saying: 'Gee, we're sorry about racism. We're sorry about homophobia in your homes and churches. We're sorry that urban schools are crappy. We're sorry that you can't find a good job. We're sorry about lack of literacy. We're sorry about all these things, but you really need to start using condoms, because if you don't, you could get infected tomorrow, or next year, or some point during the next decade, and if you do get infected, at some point, you could get sick and die.'"
| Quotes from Vibe magazine editor-in-chief Emil Wilbekin, Georgia State University psychology professor John Peterson and AIDS Task Force of Cleveland executive director Earl Pike pepper Benoit Denizet-Lewis' New York Times Magazine cover story "Double Lives on the Down Low"
posted in articles on August 2, 2003 6:27 PM | t (0)
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