Will the Mainstream Media EVER Learn?!

This week the venerable Chicago Tribune ran an article about the efforts Southlawn United Methodist Church is making to increase HIV awareness among its congregation. "That's really where the power of the church comes in is to say, 'Hey, you belong. You're part of us," says Reverend Robert Biekman, the church's senior pastor. Given our society's long history of imagining that people at risk for HIV are only shady, shifty, deviant "others," the good reverend's message is a vital one (despite its slight syntactical muddle). It's a shame that in reporting the story, the Tribune persuasively counters his message, assuming that only certain types of people could be at risk for HIV.

Southlawn United Methodist has begun offering free HIV testing (along with diabetes and blood pressure screenings) after Sunday services. That's a fine idea. But the Trib needed to interview only one person awaiting his HIV test to reinforce one of the most outdated, inaccurate assumption about HIV risk. "Though Jermaine Bell said he uses condoms and isn't promiscuous, he patiently waited for his screening at Southlawn," the paper reports. Ah, so promiscuous people are at risk for HIV. People who have too much sex with too many people are assumed to be at risk for HIV, not those who can "control" their sexuality and confine it within "normal" limits. Never mind finding out what actual sexual behaviors this marauding band of "promiscuous" people actually engage in, and whether such behaviors present any actual risk of HIV infection. Never mind that a person can have perfectly safe sex with a different person every week and be at no risk for HIV, while another person in a "committed, monogamous" relationship can have unprotected intercourse once and get infected. No, promiscuity is the problem.

Since Mr. Bell isn't "promiscuous," and even uses condoms, why is he getting an HIV test? "He had just gotten out of a relationship," the newspaper explains, unhelpfully. Um, wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to get an HIV test at the start of a relationship, so that you might know whether you present a risk to your partner?

As the coup de grace, the Trib tells us that Mr. Bell calls on "anyone who might be at risk for having the disease, such as drug users and prostitutes, to get tested." Check. It's those shady, shifty, deviant others who are at risk. And God help them if they're also promiscuous.

The article informs us that the idea for Sunday morning HIV screening came out of the First Ladies Luncheon, when about "100 wives of pastors from mainly black churches in the Chicago area, as well as a few female pastors, attended and decided to champion HIV testing." Sounds noble. But apparently this benevolent group doesn't champion HIV testing for themselves. Nor does Reverend Biekman. Nor does Reverend James Meeks, a prominent Chicago minister quoted in the article. Nor does Tracey Alston, quoted in the article as the "spokeswoman for the Sunday event." Ministers, their luncheoning wives, and their spokespeople clearly aren't the type of people who could possibly have HIV. No, it's the great unwashed laity that needs to be screened. The Trib would have us believe, as we've been asked to believe since the epidemic began, that your risk for HIV stems from the type of person you are, rather than the specific behaviors you engage in.

Is it too much to ask that a newspaper as allegedly well-informed as the Chicago Tribune stop making assumptions about HIV that were outdated in 1983?

You can read the entire article here.