ABC AIDS Special: Help or Hype?
By Keith Boykin

I can tell already that I’m going to have some issues with tonight’s ABC special on AIDS in Black America. From the moment I first heard about this project a long time ago, I was concerned that it would be used to reignite the demonization of the down low in our community. It’s very difficult for network television to deal with the complex social, cultural, political and spiritual issues around HIV/AIDS in the black community without sensationalizing those issues. I put those concerns aside for more than a year until I learned earlier this week that the ABC show was finally planning to air tonight.

The list of guests was already enough to stir my concern. One of the guests is my colleague LaJoyce Brookshire, author of “Faith Under Fire: Betrayed By A Thing Called Love.” LaJoyce is the same person who sat with me during a radio interview two months ago and said that black people should put their faith in God and not in condoms. And then there is Boston’s Rev. Eugene Rivers, an African-American pastor who has been outspoken in his criticism of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. And there’s more.

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