Quinton Harper, NCAAN Community Organizer
When I was a sophomore in college, a good friend who left college and moved back home the previous year confided in me his HIV positive status.
That year, Black men represented 88% of the new HIV infections among male college students in North Carolina, according to a report by UNC-Chapel Hill researchers. As a Black man reared to fight becoming simply another statistic, what hurt me the most was knowing that that my friend had become a statistic in that report. And that he had gone through this alone.
I made two promises to him – and I’ve kept them. I was tested for HIV, and I have worked diligently ever since to make sure that no one close to me has to deal with this alone.
He is my friend. She is my friend’s mom. He was my classmate. He was my uncle. She is an ex-girlfriend’s home girl. He is an ex-lover. She was a colleague’s mother. These people, nameless to you, are the reason why I began my work with HIV/AIDS. They are why I do what I do. HIV has no name, but their reflection increasingly reflects an image similar to mine. They are me.
We are all affected by HIV and AIDS. Our strength is in our collective power; we must continue to fight together.
After a summer of “having that conversation” with friends, and the recent passing of “a soldier” in the war, my heart is heavy. But what I told my friend as an undergraduate, what I’ve told my brothers over the past years since then, and what I would tell anyone fighting this war is this: “You are not alone.”
