Blacksmythe

I’ve written elsewhere about the problem with the whole idea of “the down low.” I presented the tentative results of an experiment I conducted looking at black attitudes towards HIV/Aids and towards black men (straight, gay, and bisexual). I found that black women exposed to stories about an HIV/AIDS victim who claimed to be heterosexual but in actuality was not (the typical down-low portrait) was much more likely to feel cold towards black men in general, and towards black bisexual and gay men in particular. As much as we talk about Why Americans Hate Welfare, what we really need to deal with are the problems keeping black people from organizing with other black people. There’s a real interesting book project here that deserves tackling.The set up:

Black HIV/AIDS rates have exploded over the past ten years–particularly among black women. While black men are over 4 times more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than their white counterparts, black women are at least ten times more likely. But while black awareness about these rates have increased, the degree of national-level organizing around the issue has not. Why?

There is a burgeoning literature on the spread of HIV/AIDS in black communities. Dr. Rucker C. Johnson has argued forcefully that the explosion is due to the increased rates of incarceration. And there are a whole host of other structural narratives that we could easily employ to account for the increase. But while there has been some media coverage looking at structural issues and HIV/AIDS, among black communities one narrative is much stronger than the others: The Down-Low Syndrome. By now we all know what the details of this story look like:

Leroy Johnson, married to Myrtle McNac, has been living a dual life. Behind closed doors he’s been engaging in numerous sexual activities with other men. And he’s not alone….

Whether we’re talking about the work of JL King, a recent hour long documentary on BET, or a whole host of news stories and columns, the down-low narrative has taken over as the central explanation for the increase of HIV/AIDS. This narrative neatly ties into a number of ideological threads running rampant in American life. Three stand out:

1. The trend of blaming health problems on individuals.
2. The trend of framing black men as deviant.
3. The growing gender gap between black men and black women.

What I suggest is a book that will be a sequel of sorts to Cathy Cohen’s groundbreaking work The Boundaries of Blackness. The book will examine the literature dealing with the growth of HIV/AIDS in poor communities in general, and in black communities in particular. Then the book will provide a rich media analysis both deconstructing the down-low narrative and revealing its strength in a variety of media formats. The book will then show–through experiments–the influence of these narratives on black public opinion. Finally the book will argue not only for more political action within black communities, but for a more complex understanding of the way that the current construction of sexual identities among black folk diminish their political capacity.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites