Commentary on Television Programming the week of August 20 to 26 by Dan Perkins

It isn't often that this publication has great things to say about broadcast television and its portrayal of Black Americans, especially during a week when the CBS reality-series, SURVIVOR, announced that in the upcoming season, they will feature teams competing along racial lines.  But something significant happened Thursday night, August 24, 2006 on network television, the news division of ABC aired a powerful, hour-long documentary that provided a chilling, but necessary look at the crisis of AIDS in Black America. 

The Primetime special, entitled Out of Control: AIDS in Black America, was hosted by Terry Moran, a clear star among ABC's current crop of reporters and anchors.  The program was originally started by the late Peter Jennings, who died last August of lung cancer before he was able to complete the project.

Moran picked up the baton with a perfect blend of inquiry, interest, concern and compassion.  He set the right tone at the outset of the broadcast by acknowledging that the media in America has not shown a real interest in exploring the AIDS epidemic and HIV transmission in Black America. In fact, the program was promoted as the first comprehensive, national network television news documentary on the AIDS epidemic among African Americans, and it aired the day after the world observed the 25th anniversary of the first reported case of AIDS.

AIDS grabbed the public's attention in the mid-1980s when Hollywood film-star, Rock Hudson, became ill with the disease. His death in October 1985, was followed by reports of hundreds, then thousands of other men, mostly white and gay, who also died of the disease. 

Many believed AIDS was something that only afflicted gay men, and many within the African American community dismissed the spread of the disease by believing that homosexuality was a lifestyle choice made mostly by white men.

Over time, however, the disease took on a very different face, both around the world and here in America. 

Today, AIDS victims are mostly people of color and heterosexual.

As world health organizations began to respond to the spread of AIDS, America television began showing images of the  devastation caused by the disease among populations throughout Africa.  Americans began seeing reports of entire adult populations in some villages and regions across African falling victim to the disease.  While the media focused on Africa, and to a lesser extent, India, few were paying attention to the changing face of AIDS in America.

Today, nearly half the new reported cases of AIDS in America are among African Americans and AIDS is now the highest cause of death among young Black women.

I applaud Moran for saying American news organizations have failed to focus attention on this new reality, and one can only hope that the ABC and other television news organizations will continue to cover the crisis until it is no longer a crisis.

After listing a series of staggering statistics about AIDS among Black Americans, statistics that were two large and devastating to comprehend in one sitting, Moran began looking at the causes for the current crisis.  He cited five factors.

The first cause was IGNORANCE.

In his exploration of the ignorance factor, Moran interviewed Gwen Iffell, an African American news anchor with PBS who appears regularly on the NEWS HOURS and is host of WASHINGTON WEEK IN REVIEW. 

Iffel, who had moderated the vice presidential debate during the 2004 campaign, had asked both candidates about the AIDS crisis in Black America.  The republican candidate, and incumbent, Dick Chaney, said he had not heard of the statistics that Iffel had been cited regarding the disease and that he was unaware that there was a crisis of such proportions afflicting Black Americans.  The democratic challenger, John Edwards, responded to Iffel's query with talk about the AIDS crisis in Africa.

As I watched excerpts from the debate featured in the Primetime special, I couldn't help but think about the political response to Katrina, which marks its one year anniversary next week.  If our political leaders have no knowledge, and no interest, in the conditions of Black America, and if our political leaders see Africa when they see Black America, then their tepid response to the hurricane-induced disaster along the Gulf Coast comes as no surprise.  Seeing all those blacks faces in New Orleans holding onto boxes and other floating materials must have caused them to wonder whether they were watching footage from Africa.  It looked like so many images we've seen on American television of Africa.  It just didn't look like America; and as several of the featured guests suggested, AIDS in Black America doesn't look like what most Americans think AIDS in America is suppose to look like. 

One guest featured in the documentary made a similar comment by observing that AIDS was an "actionable" (my wording) disease when it was killing gay, white men because white men could see the consequences of the disease among their brothers, sons, and friends.  Now that half of the faces dying of AIDS are Black, and female, and often of lower social-economic means, it's something "we" Americans are quite comfortable IGNORING.

The second factor cited as a contributor to the AIDS crisis in Black America was GOVERNMENT FAILURE.

Moran made a compelling case for government failure, first by highlighting the incredible domino-effect of government policies that imprison drug-users, of which a disproportionate percentage are Black; failure to acknowledge the reality of men having sex with men in prison; failure to allow condoms to be distributed to in-mates; failure to have system-wide testing despite statistics that show that rates of HIV infection are 5-times higher in prisons than outside, and finally, failure to communicate the risks to ex-offenders before they return to the community and have sex with their female partners.  It is a recipe for widespread devastation of enormous proportions.

Given the federal government's role in sponsoring the Tuskegee Experiment during the 1940's, when African American men were deliberately infected with syphilis, without their knowledge, and monitored for several decades,  one has to wonder whether the current imbalance in the rates of incarceration among Blacks and whites, and the persistent refusal to test and separate inmates according to their HIV-status is not evidence of a modern-day extension of the Tuskegee Experiment.

While many in the African American community believe their is a dark master-plan to physical eradicated the community, there are far fewer members of the community who are willing to openly acknowledge the third factor identified by Moran and his team.

Moran reported that SEXUAL ACTIVITY among African Americans was the third leading contributor to the rapid rise of HIV transmission within the community.

Infant morality, violence, disease are among the prime factors that Moran cited as causing an imbalance in the demographic split along gender lines within the African American community.  Moran reported that in Black America, there are 85 men for every 100 women, and in some communities, the imbalance is even greater.

A host of historic and present-day social factors have come together to encourage many Black men to despise monogamous relationships. As a result, sexual promiscuity abounds in the African American community, which fuels the spread of HIV.

Moran interviewed several health experts who noted that the African American community is plagued with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and that individuals who are exposed to STDs are more likely to contract HIV, once they are exposed to the virus.

When you have a population with high incidents of sexually transmitted diseases, engaging in risky behavior with great regularity, it is a Perfect Storm for HIV transmission, as the statistics bear out.

In addition to a high susceptibility to contracting HIV, Moran explored a fourth factor, the dark secret of HOMOSEXUALITY IN BLACK AMERICA.

The truth is Black America is a community wrestling with conflicting values and perceptions of itself.  One the one hand, many African Americans embrace conservative, Christian-based values that encourage fidelity and modesty.  One the other hand, many African Americans are enthralled with hedonism, as expressed most dramatically through hip-hop culture.  Although these two value-systems are at odds with one another, neither is embracing of homosexuality, which is not regarded as a life-style choice by most Black Americans, but rather an aberrant and unnatural behavior.

The investigation into homosexuality among African American was a starting point for Peter Jennings, when he began to explore the crisis.  Jennings met with several African American men in Atlanta who spoke openly about the hurt they caused their loved ones by living in two worlds, the traditional family-based world, and the world of the "Down-low," where men seek sexual pleasure from other men.  All of the men participating in the discussion agreed that few in the community are comfortable openly discussing homosexuality within the community. 

Moran continued the discussion with a circle of Black women who discussed the need for young women, and all women to ask their potential partners to tell them their sexual history.  The problem persists unless both parties are willing to be tested.  Otherwise, the woman is still dependent upon the honesty of her potential partner, and trust has been a longstanding issue between Black men and Black women. 

Although this issue was not addressed in the broadcast, the use of condoms, or the lack there of, also contributes to the spread of HIV within the community.  Although many people don't care for the way condoms feel, Black women must insist upon their use by their sexual partners, especially if they are not in a monogamous relationship.

Moran seemed genuinely perplexed by why so many would remain silent on a topic so deadly and with such enormous proportions.  One of the woman in the circle tried to explain that African Americans have been silent on sexual matters for a very long time.  It's something that dates back to the days when Black women were routinely violated by their slave masters, the sons of slaves masters, the foreman and bands of marauding white men. 

The horror of slavery was only endured by those who were able to exercise enormous absence of mind, by those who had the capacity to ignore the depraved and deplorable acts perpetrated against them.  No one who witnessed such violations, or had knowledge of them, dared acknowledge them.  Communal disavowing of horror was the only way individuals could maintain supportive relationships under the watchful eyes of slave masters and their overseers.  To acknowledge the horror would invoke a human response that could lead to unspeakable reprisals, including torture, mutilation, and even death.

African Americans have an enormous capacity to detach themselves from reality, even when it is to our own peril; but that's where leadership comes in and that was the fifth and final factor identified by Moran as contributing to the current AIDS crisis in Black America. Moran boldly labeled A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP as the fifth cause of the crisis.

In his examination of this factor, Moran turned his focus to the Black Church, which has long played a dominant role in Black community life.  He interviewed two African American ministers, Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, chairman of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS (NBLCA) and Senior Pastor of New York City’s historic Abyssinian Baptist Church,  and Pastor Eugene Rivers, the spiritual leader of the Azusa Christian Community, a small church in Boston, Massachusetts.  While both men spoke of the failings of the church, Primetime showed footage of both men giving passionate sermons on righteous living, individual responsibility, temperance and fidelity.

Many in the Christian community, including the Black Christian community, have moved away from traditional sermons about sin and the consequences of sin, but Pastor Rivers refused to hold any punches. Rivers was sharply critical of a culture that glorifies sexual promiscuity.

Moran featured discussions with two other ministers who were less vocal about the failure of leadership in the Black church.  Bishop TD Jakes said that the Apostle Paul did not write about HIV and AIDS, so he and many other pastors aren't sure how to handle crisis from a Biblical context.

I found that to be an amazing and unbelievable comment.  I couldn't help but wonder what Bishop Jakes knew about the teachings of Paul.  If any apostle advocated abstinence, it was Paul.  If any apostle taught his followers to follow him, as he denied his fleshly desires in order to follow Christ, it was Paul.  For Jakes to fail to acknowledge that the answer to the AIDS crisis in Black America requires restrictive sexual behavior, speaks volumes to the failure of leadership in the Black Church. 

To be fare, Moran only presented brief sound bites from his interview with Jakes, but for Jakes to blame Paul's lack of writing about a 20th century disease was pretty damning.

I personally found Moran's interview with Jesse Jackson to be the most compelling disclosure of the failure of Black leadership, both in the Black Church and on the political front. 

Moran asked Jackson why he hasn't addressed the issue of AIDS in Black America, and Jackson's response was quite telling.  Jackson responded by talking about the failure of our national leaders.  He ignored the fact that Moran asked him about his own activities.  To his credit, Moran refused to let Jackson get away with an evasive response.  With the calm and focused resolve, Moran pressed Jackson to speak to the issue of his own actions.  When Jackson began saying that activists within the community do not have access to the media to get the word out, Moran squeezed tighter.  He reminded Jackson that he has enormous media access and is uniquely positioned to be the most visible activist in the fight against AIDS.  Moran then asked Jackson if his own moral failings, specifically his highly publicized infidelity that resulted in a child out-of-wedlock, might have lessoned his credibility in promoting abstinence and fidelity as weapons in the fight against AIDS. 

It is a brilliant television moment, one that every aspiring journalist or politician should study.

Jackson, always the artful commentator, said that he does what any winning football coach would do, he is working with the fumbles and losses to inspire a winning performance.

It was a fascinating exchange and Moran demonstrated interviewing skills that match Jennings and Ted Kopel when both men were at the top of their games.

But as Moran suggested, artful commentary is not going to solve the AIDS crisis in Black America.

One group of leaders Moran did not interview were members of the Congressional Black Caucus, many of whom represent communities that are being devastated by AIDS.  There failure to become a visible force in the fight against AIDS is another example of a failure of leadership in the community.

This hour-long Primetime special is one of the reasons I remain passionate about broadcast television. It still has the capacity to reach millions of people and to positively affect their level of awareness.

Hats off to Terry Moran for his role in a project that not only honored the memory of Peter Jennings, but one that would have made Jennings proud.  And kudos to the bosses at ABCNews for approving a project that doesn't fit the typical news fare.  I have been critical of the new Nightline for its growing fascination with pop-culture and entertainment, but I am very pleased with ABCNews' coverage of this important and timely topic.

Now the real work begins. 

Black folk must take action.  We cannot leave this crisis up to others.  It is ours to claim and ours to solve with the help and support of all people of goodwill.

Thank you, ABC for helping to put the AIDS Crisis in Black America into proper perspective.  It is indeed out of control, and it is a crisis that affects us all.

The End

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