World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS, and we should all be aware that HIV/AIDS is affecting black women in epidemic proportions. According to the Center for Disease Control ("CDC"), HIV infection is the leading cause of death among African-American women between the ages of 25 and 44. The HIV prevalence rate for blacks is higher than the rates of any other ethnic group. Additionally, the HIV prevalence rate for black women is 18 times that of white women.

Blacks account for almost half the AIDS cases in the U.S. This is alarming considering that blacks only make up approximately 13% of the population. Looking at these numbers, anyone can see that this is a national emergency.

Treatment for HIV/AIDS should be a national priority. In considering universal health care and health reform, we should take into account that 1 million people in the U.S. are living and struggling with HIV/AIDS everyday. HIV/AIDS has become manageable for those who can afford health care, but for the poor, HIV/AIDS is a death sentence. It is our duty contact our representatives to make sure that they support measures to fight for the treatment and eradication of HIV/AIDS.

Additionally, we need to take personal responsibility for our health. This means taking steps necessary to make sure that we lower our risk for contracting or spreading HIV/AIDS.

Following is advice from the CDC:

"Abstain from sex (do not have oral, anal, or vaginal sex) until you are in a relationship with one person, are having sex with only each other, and each of you knows the other's HIV status."

Also, make sure that you always use a condom if you are with someone, and you don't know that person's HIV status. If that person refuses to wear a condom, walk away. I know many argue that using a condom may not feel as good, but I'm certain that being sick with HIV/AIDS feels much worse.

"If both you and your partner have HIV, use condoms to prevent other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and possible infection with a different strain of HIV."

Seriously, if you have HIV, and you know it, tell your partner/future partner, and always wear a condom.

Also, talk to your kids and make sure that they always use a condom. I know that as parents, we want to think that our children are doing nothing but homework and good deeds, but that just isn't the case. The statistics just don't support it. We have to face the fact that our children are having or going to have sex. Once we deal with that, we can reasonably protect them. Let's make sure that our kids don't end up a negative number on a CDC web page.

Why Black Women Should Ignore New Mammogram Guidelines

Last week, the government released new mammography guidelines recommending that women should begin mammography screening at 50 years of age instead of the previously recommended age 40. According to a recent Washington Post interview with Kay Dickerson, a director at the Cochran Center for Clinical Trials at Johns Hopkins, "Mammography's benefit in terms of saving lives is very small for women 40-49." Dickerson comes to this conclusion based on the results of a recent clinical trial that found that screenings were not necessary for women younger than 50.

However, it seems that black women are missing from Dickerson's assessment and recommendation. While the incidence of breast cancer is lower in black women than white women, black women have a higher incidence of breast cancer diagnosis before age 45. Additionally, black women with breast cancer have a significantly lower survival rate (75%) than the survival rate of white women (90%).

There have been very few studies done on black women and breast cancer, and quite honestly, the medical field is virtually at a loss on what to do with us. According to a recent study published in the Oncologist, "The incomplete understanding of risk factor exposures in African-American women has resulted in doubts regarding our ability to accurately predict breast cancer risk in this population subset via the established tools utilized for Caucasian-American women."

This means that even though it has been established that black women cancer types, survival and risks differ substantially from those of white women, there is no substantive knowledge or data for black women and breast cancer. This further means that the medical field cannot reasonably predict our needs for mammography, treatments, risks and survival. Due to this, these new mammography guidelines are just ridiculous.

My mother had breast cancer. She went in for a mastectomy two weeks before her 40th birthday. She died the day before her 49th birthday. There is no way my mother could have reasonably relied on these new guidelines and no reasonable African American woman should.

As always, it's up to African American women to be forceful about what we will accept as reasonable healthcare. Mammograms beginning at the age of 50 will not work for our population, and we should not accept these guidelines. Additionally, the medical field needs to get to work at figuring out ways to keep us alive. Having an "incomplete understanding" of any aspect of our health is unacceptable. We have been contributing to the development of this country for over 400 years. We deserve not only reasonable health care, but the best healthcare, and we should demand nothing less.

Invisible Black Women

I have often said things in meetings and five minutes later watch my ideas attributed to someone else. There have also been many days when I'm wearing a dress, heels, and full make-up, and I'll go to the grocery store or a fast food restaurant and have a clerk or cashier address me as "Sir". While I am six feet tall, there is no possible way if someone is really looking at me and listening to my voice, I could be mistaken for a man.

This brings forth the questions: Do people really see me or hear me? Do people see or hear black women? Everyday, I read in the news about different sorts of discrimination befalling black women today. Cancer guidelines don't meet the needs of black women. Black women's wages are growing at a slower right than white women's wages. It has even been found that there's a bias against black women in Internet dating.

Miller-McCune recently reported results from a study that says that yes, black women are indeed invisible. According to the article, "black women are more likely to go unnoticed and unappreciated than black men or whites of either gender." According to the study, white participants were "least likely to recognize black women in comparison to other groups."

So there you have it. We're invisible.

This is a condition that we cannot deal with having. We cannot allow society to be blind to black women. This condition is detrimental to our individual and communal survival. We have to work to change it. This is definitely an issue that needs to be examined on a national scale. However, in the meantime, what are we to do until the unlikely event this happens?

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Speak up. When you notice that someone else is getting or taking credit for your idea, politely correct them. I don't say we need to be rude about it. Just say, "Excuse me, but I actually suggested that." It may be rude, but so is taking an idea that belonged to another person!

2. Get in their face. Make an effort to make conversation with each person with whom you have interactions. Make sure that person is actually seeing you and looking you in the eye.

3. Make yourself clear. Be certain that the person you're talking to is really listening, be it your doctor, the person taking your order at a restaurant, or your co-worker. Always ask, "Are we clear on what I'm saying?" or "Do you have any questions?" or "Do you get my meaning?" Then finish up with, "So that we're clear, this is what I want..."

4. Don't be afraid to go back. If you don't think you were understood the first time, go back. It can be irritating and time consuming, but people need to recognize that we're here. There's no better way to do that than letting them see us again and again.

Do not think that I believe that these few changes will make a worldwide change, but I do think these are decent steps in promoting our own individual health and career well-being.

In order for there to be a significant change for black women in America, there needs to be a serious governmental acknowledgment that there is a disparity in the treatment of black women, and then a workable plan to change the status quo. Until that happens, we'll have to do what we can individually to fight our invisibility.