Not in My Family: AIDS in the African-American Community
Reflecting on the diagnosis of a husband, the loss of a friend or the survival of a mother, the 58 first-person narratives collected here give voice to bald statistics, such as that AIDS is the #1 killer of black women between the ages of 24 and 34. The writers include a "woman living luxuriously in the suburbs of Los Angeles," a man who "found excitement in the orgy scene," someone who "discovered [his] own feelings for AIDS through other people" and another who can "hardly remember what it was like not to have HIV." Famous voices, such as Al Sharpton, Patti LaBelle and Randall Robinson, as well as four congressional representatives are here, but the full power of this book rises from the personal testimonies of African-Americans writing from varied sexual, gender, class and lifestyle perspectives. This passionate collection is strengthened by William Yarbro's context-setting essay and highly practical advice from Jocelyn Elders, Herndon Davis and Dyana Williams. "Having watched countless accounts of the virus's impact on the African American community," Robertson writes, "I was dismayed by how few African Americans were an active part of this dialogue." Not any longer: those voices are loud and clear.(Dec.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.