“Among all gay and bisexual men, African Americans are the racial/ethnic group most affected by HIV.” That’s the blunt statement at the top of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) web page on HIV/AIDS among gay and bisexual men.
The next CDC fact states: “Young African American gay and bisexual men accounted for the highest number of new HIV infections in 2010 among all gay and bisexual men.”
That concern persists in 2015 and is at the heart of the work of Al Sura, Inc., a Washington, DC nonprofit that seeks to provide tangible, fiscal support to local groups working to better protect the health of the African American community in general, the LGBT community in particular and especially African Americans afflicted with AIDS or HIV.
AIDS is still described as an “epidemic,” and its presence is deeply felt in the African American community here in Washington, DC and elsewhere. The fact that the HIV infection rates are highest among young black men, a demographic that also leads the incarceration rates, is particularly disturbing to Al Sura, since HIV has become treatable and even livable over the long-term. But this very improvement — in drug therapy, healthy diet and lifestyle — that has added to the longevity of people living with HIV, may also have contributed to a myth that HIV is no longer a problem.
“People should not be dying,” said Abdur-Rahim Briggs, an Al Sura co-founder and board president, when we spoke recently at the group’s annual White Attire Affair fundraiser at the historic Thurgood Marshall Center in Washington, DC. “It’s gone to a whole other level — PrEP, prophylaxis,” he said. “People think ‘I can do whatever I want to do.’ This has added to health disparities and not just HIV, but also other STDs. It is why people are still dying from it. People are desensitized.”
But why, with all the education and awareness about AIDS and HIV, would young people, and especially young African Americans, be so susceptible to infection? “There’s a false sense of security, the sense that ‘I’ll just get medicines and I’ll be ok’,” said Ronald Thomas, also an Al Sura co-founder and board member. “It’s the idea that if you don’t look sick so you can’t be sick. HIV does not have a look but AIDS does. So there’s this impervious attitude among the young that it will never happen to you.”
Sometimes, however, the fact that young people are neither tested nor treated can be related to the family environment as well. “It can be due to abandonment,” continued Thomas. “Family and friends shunning them. They are forced onto the streets and it’s about survival sex. They have to do something to stay afloat. So they’ll have sex with a stranger just to get shelter.”
The lack of awareness can be exacerbated, said Briggs, by the fact that “African American society is still socially conservative, especially the black churches. There are a lot of issues. But we have to keep pushing.”
While once Al Sura — whose website says the name means “new beginning” or “new chapter” — handed out large grants to just a few individuals, the organization has gone through an evolution since its founding in 2008. “We realized we were helping people but we were not helping enough people,” Thomas said. “We scaled it down to be more personal for people.”
Consequently, Al Sura is able to help multiple groups with seemingly mundane but essential things, like bedding and toiletries for the Wanda Alston House, a shelter for homeless GLBTQ youth, or facilitating the formation of a new group’s 501(c)(3). The ManDate, a monthly discussion group that brings gay black men together in an intimate at-home setting to explore a wide range of issues related to health and wellness, is another Al Sura beneficiary. But the group also sponsors more high profile ventures such as a 2013 DC production of James Earl Hardy’s play, B-Boy Blues, and the Howard Theatre debut of an out black comic, Sampson McCormick, who is a dedicated HIV/AIDS awareness campaigner. McCormick, who grew up in DC, has raised money for homeless and HIV affected LGBT youth and has volunteered at the Wanda Alston House.
Al Sura is necessary because there is not a strong tradition of institutional philanthropy within the black community, says Darryl Moch, Al Sura board vice-president. He would like to see — and to help — the more affluent members of the gay black community make a cultural shift toward philanthropic endeavors. “Black gay men in particular hold onto their wealth more,” he said. “They are highly educated but they have not learned the key to philanthropy. Culturally we are taught to be consumers, not to save money and do something with it.”
Consequently, Moch, who has also run for DC City Council as a member of the Green Party, is aiming to develop Al Sura into a major donor-advised philanthropic organization, specifically targeting grants to the African American community. “That’s my vision,” he said.
Re-energizing that community can be an uphill struggle, Moch admits. “For the black community, they are so used to not getting what they want and need, so when it doesn’t happen, they don’t go out and make it happen,” he said. While whites may eagerly confront LGBT equality challenges without the added burden of racial discrimination, Moch says, “the same-gender loving black community is just tired of fighting or we feel we shouldn’t have to fight. And so we are not fighting for everything all the time.”
Briggs is hopeful, meanwhile, that the legalization of same-sex marriage might help the more conservative black community come to greater acceptance of its same-gender loving members. “Marriage makes people healthy,” he said. “If we are married, we are not trying to be promiscuous. We just want to love.”
That love was celebrated in festive style at the White Attire Affair, which is also an opportunity to network, to thank donors, and to celebrate gains, all dressed to the nines in sparkling white while dancing to the irresistible beats spun by a professional DJ.
It is a brief interlude each year (along with the Al Sura In Black event in the spring), when it’s possible to forget some of the harsh realities that confront the community each day.