News: Sheryl Lee Ralph, HIV, Black Churches

Rocka interviews the fabulous Sheryl Lee Ralph, who explains why she created her dynamic one-woman show—Sometimes I Cry: The Loves, Lives, and Losses of Women Infected and Affected by HIV/AIDS. "I heard about the disease back when I was doing Dreamgirls, nobody wanted to talk about the gay men's cancer, or something called GRID. People were getting infected and Christians were throwing the first stone—judging. Now, 20 years later, we look and learn that AIDS is about all of us."

· More than 25 black Seattle-area churches unite to raise HIV/AIDS awareness.

· The Anglican Church in Kenya issued a public apology for shunning people living with HIV/AIDS. Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Nairobi: "Our earlier approach in fighting AIDS was misplaced, since we likened it to a disease for sinners and a curse from God. We apologize for earlier abandoning our flock." The archbishop's comments were delivered to a conference of HIV-positive clergy where some welcomed the apology. "It's better to be long overdue than never," responded poz Ugandan clergyman Gideon Byamugisha.

· "I'm seriously ill, I don't know how much time I have left." One of South Africa's most popular television personalities comes out as HIV-positive. SABC weatherman Jabu "Okumhlophe" Sithole made the announcement with his wife. Annah Sithole is expecting her third child; she only learned her status last December during a prenatal check-up. An estimated one in five South Africans are HIV-positive.

Comments

[Doug Cooper-Spencer]

The black gay community has to continue to be visible in the fight against HIV. What I am seeing in many of the churches who are starting to address the issue of HIV is an attempt to make the gay community invisible and to address the matter as if women should be the victims while the homosexual man the villain. The homophobia is still there and makes a mockery of anyone who wishes to address the disease. The disease of the sexual immaturity of many in the black community is part of what contributes to the spread of the HIV. We must make sure the black 'charitable' organizations don't do what many of the white AIDS organizations have tried to do, and that is co-op the HIV preventions resources while overlooking the black gay community.