The Scenario

A young, intelligent and attractive African-American lady walks with her friends through her HBCU’s campus. While seeing all the sights, they come across the Student Union where free HIV testing is being held.

The young lady, who hasn’t had as much sexual experience as her friends, goes in only because everyone else did. Hey, HIV is the furthest thing from her mind; she’s only had one partner.

Two weeks later they all go in to receive their results separately. The young lady almost forgets about her appointment, since she knows she has nothing to worry about, and barely makes it in to see the nurse.

She sits down in the chair. The nurse opens the folder containing her information, explains to her what exactly the test looks for and tells her she is HIV positive. Her life will never be the same. She becomes the latest victim of a virus that is taking the brightest of African-Americans by storm.

The latest trend at the nation’s most popular HBCUs is not furry boots, New York fitted caps, and Louis Vuitton purses. It’s HIV, and HBCU students are falling victim to HIV at an outstanding and overwhelming tempo. African-Americans are becoming infected due to many issues such as unprotected sex with various partners, the many cases of “Down Low” men, and not to mention, the “it won’t happen to me” attitude that many of them uphold.

The Numbers

The statistics are devastating. North Carolina, which initiated HIV reporting in 1990, started a method of detecting early HIV infections in 2002 for everyone who voluntarily gets tested at public clinics. According to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, 73 of the 84 newly HIV infected males were black college students. That is 88 percent.

The study found infection rising among the male college students from six cases in 2000 to 19 in 2001, 29 in 2002 and 30 in 2003.

Sixty-three of the 73 infected black men told researchers they had sex with other men, but they did not consider themselves gay and did not think they were at risk of contracting HIV. Twenty-seven of those men said they also had sex with women.

Due to African-Americans being plagued with the “Down Low” problem, where men have unprotected sex with other men and continue to sleep with unknowing women, HIV-positive black men are spreading the disease to young black women.

According to Janet Lattimore, an A&T health educator, this problem is due to the hard treatment homosexual men receive in the African-American community.

“The African-American race is less accepting of homosexuality,” said Lattimore. “This makes it even harder for these men to come clean.”

As chilling as the statistics are North Carolina health officials say the numbers probably capture only a small percentage of the real extent of HIV infection among college students. This is due to many people not receiving testing, testing in other cities or not being identified as college students in tests.

According to Lattimore, it is possible that A&T falls under this category.

“I wouldn’t say that (HIV) is a problem here because the testing conducted on students mainly comes up negative,” said Lattimore. “I’m not saying that nobody on campus is positive, we just may not have tested them here.”

Who’s Helping

The Black AIDS Institute released a national report on the state of AIDS in Black America, titled “The Time is Now!” The report explains the policies and politics that have helped shape the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Black America and our nation’s response to it.

According to Blackaids.org, Black AIDS Institute executive director Phil Wilson believes that knowledge is the key to fighting this epidemic.

“For Black America, the moment of truth has arrived,” said Wilson. “If we’re going to survive this epidemic, we are going to have to gather all of our resources and marshal them for the struggles that lay ahead.”

• Maria Robertson