The Red Pump Project

26 March 2010 ~ 23 Comments

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Let’s begin with the stats.

Black teens aged 13–19 represent only 16 percent of all teenagers in the United States but are 69% of new AIDS cases among teens. (The Henry Kaiser Foundation.)
Almost 70 percent of all newly diagnosed HIV-positive women in the United States are black women. (ABC News)
AIDS is the leading cause of death for black women aged 25–34 and the third leading cause of death for black women aged 35-44. (Center for Disease Control)

Last night I attended the Red Pump Project’s “Rock the Red” Fashion Show at The Bottom Lounge (1375 W. Lake St.) in Chicago. The event serves to raise awareness of AIDS among black women while celebrating fashion.

The clothes were beautiful, and the people were lovely. But I was haunted by the statistics I heard. My mind raced to the people I know — people close to me — who don’t make it a habit to practice safe sex. And for a moment in the crowded lounge, I panicked.

Rae Lewis Thornton, an activist and minister living with AIDS, was presented with an award. The room fell silent as she told about how, as a successful professional in her 20s, she first discovered she was infected with AIDS. Her boyfriend’s first words after hearing: “You bitch.”

Rae is an amazing woman and her website – which I’ve posted on BGLH’s Resources page — is one of the most candid, wrenching and hopeful accounts of a woman living with AIDS. I would encourage you all to read it to find out more.

Naturals were well-represented at the event and I brought along my fiance’s camera to try to snap some shots. I’m not nearly as good as him but I did my best :)

Latithia modeled in the show. I ADORED her unstretched fro.

Laterra also modeled. She rocked a short red afro.

I was loving the headpiece she wore with this outfit.

Evelyn was a natural in the crowd. Her locks were absolutely gorgeous.

Candice’s wash and go was gorgeous. Her coils just popped!

I loved the color in Sandria’s locks. And the high bun is so regal.

I also ran into BGLHers Sharde and Jessica and the lovely Afrobella. All three ladies were at BGLH’s meetup on Saturday. Shari was my date to the event :) Jessica (second from right) is a jewelry maker whose pieces were auctioned off as part of the fundraiser.

I wore a (nearly undefined) braidout. It actually shrunk up over the course of the night. (This reminds me. I need to post some updates on my hair.)

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What is your reaction to the statistics (and to AIDS in the black community generally)? And are you feeling the hair in this post?

23 Responses to “The Red Pump Project”

Jc 26 March 2010 at 5:23 am Permalink

I’m glad you have highlighted this topic. I’m from Kenya and I had HIV/AIDS awareness throughout my schooling life in Kenya. Seriously, I have cried through some programs where kids as young as 6 were left to raise their younger siblings after their parents died of HIV. One little girl said that she knows she has what her mother has because she can’t hear very well and feels sick all the time. Her greatest worry was that she will die before her mother and her mother wouldn’t have anyone to care for her. She was right that she had HIV but her mother died first leaving the little girl to raise her 1 year old sister. The little girl did actually say that she wishes that she could just have entered the grave with her mother………now that is HIV in Africa.

We have serious issues from denial, ignorance, taboo and lack of medication. It was therefore seriously disappointing to me when I saw a Tyra show episode where kids were asked how HIV was transmitted and only one of the cohort actually knew. Most were actually having sex but had the audacity to shrug their shoulders like HIV was a dirty word.

Awareness and education is so important. Drug treatments at affordable prices are important for developing nations.

Thankyou for this post Leila.

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Shari 26 March 2010 at 9:41 am Permalink

Thanks for being my date, Leila! I had such a good time and Rae Lewis Thornton is such an inspiration. Shout out to Luvvie and Karyn for putting on such a great event.

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Shones 26 March 2010 at 10:05 am Permalink

All of the natural styles pictured here are gorgeous, but I’m particularly fond of Candice’s wash-and-go. My hair doesn’t seem to want to move forward over my forehead. Oh well.

The statistics about AIDS cases among black youth are disheartening. Truth be told, that could have been many of us who are now older and making wiser choices, so I am thankful for God’s grace. I truly believe that if young people were taught from an early age who they *really* are, that their bodies are a temple, that purity is not a dirty word, etc., we wouldn’t see so much of this. Each one, teach one. At LEAST one.

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Meena 26 March 2010 at 11:05 am Permalink

Very sad statistics. To read them and hear them always irks me because it does nothing positive for young black women’s image. The ladies look beautiful in the picture.

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Black Girl With Long Hair 26 March 2010 at 11:12 am Permalink

@Meena… I agree, but I do think that “image” can’t always be divorced from reality. Hearing Rae speak was impactful because she was young, successful and beautiful (as many BGLHers are) when she contracted AIDS.

It’s tough because I know there’s been a lot of justified complaining among black women that we’re portrayed horribly in the media. But the numbers don’t lie.

Whenever I feel like complaining about our portrayal, I redirect that energy into thinking about ways that I can do community building. I know not everyone will have that impulse or feel that responsibility. But I do, and so did the two lovely young women (Luvvie and Karyn) who planned the Red Pump event.

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Athena 26 March 2010 at 12:13 pm Permalink

Statistics like these are why I wish there was more of a push to have comprehensive sex education in schools. The sad reality is that young girls (and some young women) are getting a lot of misinformation from their friends because they either feel like they can’t talk to their parents about these issues and our school system seems to only want to shove abstinence down their throats. Abstinence is all well and good but young women need to have all the information available to them so that they are able to make better choices. Quite a number of young girls (black or otherwise) still buy into that tired excuse that their boyfriends will give them about condoms not feeling good. Its really sad that even that one simple little step (in addition to talking openly about testing) is still being overlooked.

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Luvvie 26 March 2010 at 1:36 pm Permalink

Thanks for coming, Leila!!! So glad to finally meet you. I’ve been reading your blog for a while now. :-D

You’re definitely right about the stats. They’re our driving force behind The Red Pump Project.

P.S. Will def try to make it to the next meetup!

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Afrika 26 March 2010 at 3:40 pm Permalink

Those are some shocking statistics. Wow! just wow! Awareness among black communities everywhere in the world is getting worse over the decades. We really need to take a stand.

Leila, I must say that you are a very beautiful and inspirational woman. Your fiance is one lucky guy.

Peace & Progress

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Black Girl With Long Hair 26 March 2010 at 3:48 pm Permalink

Thank you Afrika!

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Sandria Washington 26 March 2010 at 4:02 pm Permalink

I am still shaken by Rae’s account of discovering her AIDS status. The phrase “You b****h” still has a lump in my throat. Thank you for helping to bring more awareness to the event and cause. As the ladies say, “Awareness is always in style!”

It was a pleasure to meet you and discover this blog. I will definitely be spending more time on here and hope to catch the next meet up!

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kadiane*francophone 26 March 2010 at 5:43 pm Permalink

I’m feeling YOUR hair. Love it

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Meena 26 March 2010 at 8:46 pm Permalink

According to the listed statistics on the Center for Disease Control website, black women are being infected from unprotected sexual intercourse with male partners, and they specifically cite the high incarceration rate of black men as a major cause of high infection rates in black women. Put simply, the picture they paint seems to imply that even if black women sleep with a relatively low number of partners, and practice safe sex a majority of the time, based on black men within the African American community being carriers, black women who are in those communities and interacting on an intimate level with those men, are more likely to get infected than other races of women in communities where infection cases are lower regardless of the number of partners they have. If anyone is interested in reading more, http://www.cdc.gov has great links that bring you to initiatives being done specifically for the African American community and HIV/AIDS

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Amma Mama 26 March 2010 at 10:23 pm Permalink

Leila , you look GREAT!

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BlaqInfinite 27 March 2010 at 7:28 pm Permalink

statistics? EH…I’m not too big on those. I researched HIV and STD rates at Center for Disease Control and I think they’re all racist heffers. They have their exaggerated graphs and white people (the VAST majority) have the tiniest number of diagnosed cases in America? Really? Don’t you think that would be a little impossible, considering black people make up a minority of the American population and we would make up a smaller number of diagnosed patients regardless? Sure, maybe the ratio of diagnosed to undiagnosed blacks may be larger than that of whites and/or other races. THAT I will believe. But not that black women make up 70% of ALL HIV cases in the U.S. Girl PLEASE. Remember the people who take these statistics. It’s not us, and it’s not people who necessarily like us.
Either way, HIV awareness is needed for everyone, not just black women and this event was for a good cause. On a more positive note, Everyone looked great.

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KindredSmile 29 March 2010 at 11:39 am Permalink

It was great meeting you at Rock the Red – what a lovely evening filled with such positive energy. Already looking forward to the next natural meetup here in Chicago – I think you mentioned May? Either way, count me in!

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Cygnet 30 March 2010 at 4:11 am Permalink

This is way, way past my bedtime, but after reading a couple of the responses before mine, I have to say something, and if you will please hear me with an open, receptive mind, I trust you will find it instructive and useful, and thus worth my saying. My apologies to you, Leila, for the frankness of some of the information I’m about to share. I promise to do it in as tasteful and serious a manner as the subject will allow.

From 2000 to 2005 I worked as a phone educator using CDC-approved information for a non-profit organization that exists to educate the public about all STD’s, including HIV/AIDS. In that time, I heard a lot of upset from callers about how the statistics seemed to paint unfair pictures of this group or that group. Realizing that I may not change any minds here, I will nevertheless share with you an explanation for the summary of the most important take-away points I tried to give to callers with whom I had this discussion.

First, realize how CDC and other stat-takers are studying the numbers. Simply to help me make my case, let us pretend that there are 25 million African-descendant people in the U.S. and 125 million European-descendant people in the U.S. That’s just one of the numbers reported. Since statisticians are counting HIV/AIDS infections within those groups, they are now going to introduce a bunch of other sets of numbers. They are looking at what I call “body count”, that is, the total number of infected just in one group, then that number just in the other group, then that number across both groups. Then, they’re looking at what percent of each group individually is made up of those who are infected.

So even if we assume that the body count is greater among a larger group, which is a sensible assumption to make, a group of 125 million total is significantly larger than a group of only 25 million total, so if the body count among the smaller group is 5 million, and it’s 10 million among the larger group, they have the larger body count, but their body count makes up a significantly smaller percent of their population. Thus (Math teachers, correct me if I’m wrong), whereas the body count of European-descendant people in my mythical U.S. is double that for the African-descendant people, the percentages for both groups are very telling: at 10 million, the counted bodies make up only 8 percent of the 125-million population, whereas the 5 million bodies counted make up a whopping 20 percent of the smaller population. So you can’t just look at the body count, you also have to look at how large a percentage that body count is among the group from which the count was taken.

As to where the CDC is getting their numbers, a careful perusal of their information on testing will make it clear: While your name and other identifying information is never given to the people who receive your blood sample, the results are reported to the CDC. Every place—clinic, lab, office—where your blood is tested is required to give this information. Thus, while the CDC will not know that Jane B. Doe of Two Sticks somewhere in the middle of nowhere was tested for HIV, they will know that they have received the test results of a black female, age 24, and those results are positive. CDC then investigates every case for its route of transmission: In this case, let’s say she was in her first long-term relationship with a man who told her many things about himself, but left out that during the two years he spent in prison, he was assaulted by a group of prison bullies, at least one of which was infected. Wanting to put the painful episode behind him, he didn’t say anything to anyone outside, but he didn’t do anything about determining his status, either. Now Jane B. Doe, name and face unknown to the CDC, is infected, and though they’ll never be able to point and say, “It’s you”, they know that it happened and how. It is because they have been so diligent to know all they can about every case of transmission that they are able to tell you how it can and cannot happen, as well as what we can and must do to reduce the risks to ourselves and the incidence of it in our community.

Which brings me to the third point I would make to my callers: Statistics are only subjective if you are among the counted; however, HIV/AIDS is real, and it ain’t no joke! People die from this! It is important that you as an individual know the risks inherent in your own behavior and take the necessary steps to reduce those risks where you can.

If you are beginning or ending a sexual relationship, make sure you get tested for all STD’s, including HIV/AIDS. The symptoms and signs of other STD’S in you or your partner can increase your risk of getting HIV or of passing it if you already have it.

Do not assume that your gynecologist is testing you! Specifically say to her/him that you want to test for all testable STD’s, and don’t take no for an answer. If they can’t do it, there are resources that can direct you to places that will test you.

Make sure you know the status of any new partners before becoming intimate with them by having them tested as well, and discuss the results with them. Never assume that s/he is disease-free based on appearances: Just because you don’t see signs or symptoms of disease does not mean s/he is healthy. The signs and symptoms of some diseases may be unapparent or go unrecognized, ignored, or be thought to be something else for weeks, months, and even years. Some diseases have cyclical symptoms that come and go. Have the person tested, and don’t risk your body for the desire to establish trust if you don’t know the person is trustworthy.

Even after s/he has gone with you to be tested, and you’ve both tested negative, be aware that not all partners are faithful. Until you know your partner is faithful, know how to correctly use the available barrier methods, and make sure to insist on consistent and correct use every single time, before every single contact. CDC defines transmission routes as being vaginal, anal, and oral sex, whether there is full penetration or just skin-to-skin contact. HIV and other STD’s can be passed in fluids the body produces as part of sexual arousal, and these can get onto mucous membranes in your mouth, anus, and genital area from nothing more than simple contact with these areas. And while I don’t think that CDC has yet documented a female-female sexual transmission of HIV, that can still happen for other STD’s. So make sure the condom is on before that part of him touches any part of you. There are appropriately-sized sheets you can use for oral sex as well.

If the worst happens, and you become infected anyway, know that there’s assistance for you, and be proactive about getting it. It may seem like a case of too little too late, but it can also mean the difference between dying very quickly and possibly living a couple more decades, during which, like the aforementioned minister at the fashion show, you can still live a full, productive life.

CDC.gov not only has comprehensive information about HIV/AIDS, but other STD’s as well, and the information is worth studying and reviewing periodically. I also suggest checking out http://www.ashastd.org, the web site of the American Social Health Association, who worked in conjunction with CDC for many years to make this information available via anonymous hotlines. The relationship between the two agencies has since ended, but ASHA still runs its hotlines, and you can call anonymously to talk with them. Don’t bother telling them Cygnet sent you, though. They won’t know who that is, and that’s not how I identified myself when ID was requested by callers. What they can do, however, is direct you to how to find even more information about risk reduction for HIV/AIDS and other STD’s.

Finally, I realize I got both long-winded and frank. I’ve never been one who believed in treating the subject of sex and its attendant issues as though I’m one of a playgroup of six-year-olds and one of them hollered “guts!” The disease aspect of sex is indeed very serious! Yet some people insist on changing partners with almost the same regularity they change their clothes; many of these same people can’t be brought to have a sensible, serious, straight-faced, and knowledgeable discourse about it, which I think is utterly stupid, not to mention dangerous. This is one subject where I believe the demonstration of sensible, knowledgeable talk-ability ought to be required before one is allowed to practice f#@/-ability, and I believe that so ought all parents to teach their children. That, I believe, will go a long way to turning around some of the numbers that have so shocked and, in many cases, offended so many of us. Again, my apologies to Leila for some of the content of what I’ve shared, but this is information that far too many people don’t know, and many who say they know it treat it as though they don’t think it applies to them. That needs to change.

Now, I’m going to bed!

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BlaqInfinite 30 March 2010 at 8:02 pm Permalink

@Cygnet thanks for the info. I read all of it. So I was right-the percentages they give us in these PSAs are based on ratios.

They are still deceiving the general public. Saying 70% of ALL new HIV cases are black women is DECEPTION. I’m sorry but this angers me.

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Black Girl With Long Hair 30 March 2010 at 8:53 pm Permalink

@Cygnet (and everyone else that questioned that stats)… I am thinking through everything that was said. Thanks for letting me know that there’s another perspective.

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TheLadyDayDreamer 1 April 2010 at 2:16 pm Permalink

Great post Cygnet and BGLH.

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eleisha 14 August 2010 at 11:33 am Permalink

Great post! The #s are very sad especially being this is something we can prevent. I do agree w/ another opinion that comprehensive sex ed should be in schools, however I feel that parents should also teach their kids about sex, pregnancy and STDs. In my experience as soon as my brother and I asked where babies come from little did we know my mother would educate us on much more. So along with the long conversation about babies we talked about sex STDs, how you can protect yourself etc. I know my mom didnt exactly like the q&a session but I can honestly say that when we did have sex ed I knew everything in the book and more. Also I am not embarrassed to talk to my mom about anything. thanks for postina!

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obbergton 29 January 2012 at 12:42 pm Permalink

Just want to wish you guys good luck and was wondering what games ye have worked on?

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