The Eta Beta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta held a seminar on HIV/AIDS awareness Tuesday in the Hobart Taylor auditorium.
The seminar, titled “the Resurrection of the Black Woman,” was part of a three-day campaign to help fight the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The first speaker, Terrence Gilbert, gave an interesting speech about down-low brothers and the AIDS epidemic. Gilbert encouraged students to have an open relationship with their doctors and get tested together with their partners.
Quinton Caver, of the Dallas Cowboys, gave a motivational speech about “Loving Yourself First.”
Caver said, “The first thing about loving yourself is respecting yourself. If you don’t do it, your partner won’t either. A lot of guys on the down low, especially in the NFL, are not being honest with their partners.”
According to statistics, black women who comprise just 12 to 13 percent of the U.S. population account for about 70 percent of new AIDS cases.
Maxine Young of the Aids Institute of Houston, and Stephanie Vallery, a woman living with AIDS, gave a testimony directed at young black women encouraging them to protect themselves. AIDS has become one of the top three causes of death for black women aged 25-34.
Young stated, “Our young people are dying and nobody seems to care. The struggle that my ancestors went through was not in vain.” Young told the students to take advantage of the free AIDS education and forms of prevention accessible to them.
Vallery gave her perspective on the virus based on personal experience. Saying that she discovered her positive status in January 2000, she discussed how the disease has affected her personal life emotionally and financially. Vallery, who contacted the disease from a male, believes that the reason the disease is spreading so rapidly is due to casual sex.
“Sex is an addiction,” she said as she told students to figure out their reasons for having casual sex. To stop the rapid spreading of the virus Vallery said that faithfulness and communication were the answers. She pointed out that AIDS is not contracted from casual contact, but from intercourse. People diagnosed with HIV have the virus but do not show any symptoms and those individuals diagnosed with AIDS exhibit symptoms. “The infections kill you,” she said, “not the disease.”
Shunte Jones, a senior agriculture and economics major and vice president of the Eta Beta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, talked about what she hoped students would gain from the experience. “I wanted to bring awareness to one of the many problems I feel is affecting black women as a whole,” said Jones.
Statistics indicate that one out of every 160 African-American women is HIV positive, compared to one in every 3, 000 Caucasian women.