From Epidemic to Extinction: HIV/AIDS Amongst African-Americans
According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), "African-Americans account for about half (49%) of the people who get HIV and AIDS". The CDC website also states, "Blacks with AIDS often don't live as long as people of other races and ethnic groups with AIDS".
Enough is enough! Looking at these statistics made me think about extinction. Now Webster's Dictionary defines extinction as "The process of eliminating or reducing a conditioned response by not reinforcing it". Let's think about this definition for a minute or rephrase it. Extinction is a way to wipe out or destroy a certain species' way of thinking, survival, or existence. Referring to the later part of the definition, I got another revelation after reading it a few times. It made me think about how at one time the structure of the African-American family was very strong and important. I thought about how prevalent the fathers were back in the day. It was just understood or maybe even taught for the fathers to be real men and provide and care for their families. I can recall hearing many stories of how fathers would chastise their children growing up in the 60's. I guess they were "conditioned" or taught how to raise their children, teaching them morals, values, and right from wrong. Well, somewhere down the line that "conditioning" or teaching has been lost and has not been "reinforced". Hence, the absence of fathers in the homes of most African-Americans. I truly believe that children fair out better with both parents in the home, because this way they can get a much clearer perspective on how a man or woman should behave as an adult.
I strongly believe that prevention begins at home. Parents are our very first teachers, and if we do not learn from them then we definitely will learn our behavior from somewhere else. Therefore, somewhere down the generations of African-Americans the home teachings of morals, values, or sex education has gotten lost, been reduced, or has not been reinforced.
I know it seems as though I've gotten off of the subject or have gone way in left field somewhere, but really I haven't; because just as HIV/AIDS has become an epidemic amongst the African-American community, so has absentee fathers or single parent households. If they haven't already done so, I think that psychologists should really consider reviewing the correlation between HIV/AIDS statistics amongst African-Aericans and the statistics of fatherless homes amongst African-Americans.
Now that I've covered the epidemic portion of this topic, let's go over the extinction part again. The way I see it is like taxonomy, which is the science of classification (categorizing) and nomenclature (naming). In this case, our culture (African-American) is considered the classification, and the HIV/AIDS disease is considered the nomenclature since it is the actual name of the illness or disease. Now the reason I use taxonomy as an example is because it is used to organize all of the different species throughout the world. Plus there are so many species that are on the verge of extinction, I thought this would be a perfect example of showing how our race is going from epidemic to extinction.
Taxonomy is organized into groups. It starts with the largest group to the smallest. They are as follows:
Kingdom, Phyla or Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, & Species
Since I'm mainly referring to humans in this topic, did you know that human beings fall into this taxonomy organization the same as animals, birds, fish, etc...? Yep, sure do. For example, Homo sapien. Homo falls in the genus category, and sapien falls under species. Another example would be the Columbian White-Tailed Deer. The scientific genus/species name is Odocoileus virginianus leucurus. This animal was listed as an endangered species in the state of Oregon in 1967, and became extinct in 2003. There are several other mammals (mammalia classifications) other than African-American humans on the verge of extinction. Birds are added to the endangered species list all the time.
I know you probably don't think I should be comparing African-American human beings to birds or animals, but in actuality we are all part of the mammalia (mammal, warm-blooded) category. We are all part of the same "circle of life"....Humans eat cow, cows eat grass, grass produces oxygen and other necessary chemicals for survival...the circle just goes round and round. Furthermore, with the HIV/AIDS statistics amongst the African-American community steadily increasing, our race could definitely see extinction or be placed on the endangered species list of the U.S. if we do not take a stand and protect ourselves. Just think about it! If we only make up about 13% of the U.S. population, and 49% of that population is infected....either something's wrong with the way CDC is collecting their information, something's wrong with the actual calculations, or we're in trouble. If these numbers continue to increase, then our population will definitely decrease.
Enough is enough! Looking at these statistics made me think about extinction. Now Webster's Dictionary defines extinction as "The process of eliminating or reducing a conditioned response by not reinforcing it". Let's think about this definition for a minute or rephrase it. Extinction is a way to wipe out or destroy a certain species' way of thinking, survival, or existence. Referring to the later part of the definition, I got another revelation after reading it a few times. It made me think about how at one time the structure of the African-American family was very strong and important. I thought about how prevalent the fathers were back in the day. It was just understood or maybe even taught for the fathers to be real men and provide and care for their families. I can recall hearing many stories of how fathers would chastise their children growing up in the 60's. I guess they were "conditioned" or taught how to raise their children, teaching them morals, values, and right from wrong. Well, somewhere down the line that "conditioning" or teaching has been lost and has not been "reinforced". Hence, the absence of fathers in the homes of most African-Americans. I truly believe that children fair out better with both parents in the home, because this way they can get a much clearer perspective on how a man or woman should behave as an adult.
I strongly believe that prevention begins at home. Parents are our very first teachers, and if we do not learn from them then we definitely will learn our behavior from somewhere else. Therefore, somewhere down the generations of African-Americans the home teachings of morals, values, or sex education has gotten lost, been reduced, or has not been reinforced.
I know it seems as though I've gotten off of the subject or have gone way in left field somewhere, but really I haven't; because just as HIV/AIDS has become an epidemic amongst the African-American community, so has absentee fathers or single parent households. If they haven't already done so, I think that psychologists should really consider reviewing the correlation between HIV/AIDS statistics amongst African-Aericans and the statistics of fatherless homes amongst African-Americans.
Now that I've covered the epidemic portion of this topic, let's go over the extinction part again. The way I see it is like taxonomy, which is the science of classification (categorizing) and nomenclature (naming). In this case, our culture (African-American) is considered the classification, and the HIV/AIDS disease is considered the nomenclature since it is the actual name of the illness or disease. Now the reason I use taxonomy as an example is because it is used to organize all of the different species throughout the world. Plus there are so many species that are on the verge of extinction, I thought this would be a perfect example of showing how our race is going from epidemic to extinction.
Taxonomy is organized into groups. It starts with the largest group to the smallest. They are as follows:
Kingdom, Phyla or Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, & Species
Since I'm mainly referring to humans in this topic, did you know that human beings fall into this taxonomy organization the same as animals, birds, fish, etc...? Yep, sure do. For example, Homo sapien. Homo falls in the genus category, and sapien falls under species. Another example would be the Columbian White-Tailed Deer. The scientific genus/species name is Odocoileus virginianus leucurus. This animal was listed as an endangered species in the state of Oregon in 1967, and became extinct in 2003. There are several other mammals (mammalia classifications) other than African-American humans on the verge of extinction. Birds are added to the endangered species list all the time.
I know you probably don't think I should be comparing African-American human beings to birds or animals, but in actuality we are all part of the mammalia (mammal, warm-blooded) category. We are all part of the same "circle of life"....Humans eat cow, cows eat grass, grass produces oxygen and other necessary chemicals for survival...the circle just goes round and round. Furthermore, with the HIV/AIDS statistics amongst the African-American community steadily increasing, our race could definitely see extinction or be placed on the endangered species list of the U.S. if we do not take a stand and protect ourselves. Just think about it! If we only make up about 13% of the U.S. population, and 49% of that population is infected....either something's wrong with the way CDC is collecting their information, something's wrong with the actual calculations, or we're in trouble. If these numbers continue to increase, then our population will definitely decrease.
Always play smart! Protect yourselves!
For more information on HIV/AIDS, go to:
Peace & Blessings!
- K.R. Brumfield
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