An Interview with Debra FraserHowze

Debra FraserHowze is the President/CEO of the New York Citybased National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS (BLCA), which she founded in 1987. Under the leadership of Ms. FraserHowze, BLCA has grown to become the oldest and largest Black HIV and AIDS nonprofit organization of its kind in America.

Numedx: What are the unique HIV prevention messages and their venues that should be addressed to the African American communities?

Debra Fraser-Howze: Well, let me start by saying that more is right with African American communities than the media and other people would like to portray. We have a basic commonality that is African-rooted in our culture, and those kinds of things yield certain cultural norms. Among them is a deep sense of pride, a desire to succeed, love of our children, respect for our elderly, a reverence for a power greater than humankind and greater than ourselves, and the ability to survive under tremendous pressure and against great odds. In order for us to have effective public health interventions we have to take all of these things into account and begin to look at both the messengers and the messages that get sent to the community. If you are a local politician in the black community and you have been voted into office for the last 20 to 25 years, it would suggest that, yes, you've probably made some mistakes, but for the large part the community does have a level of trust in you. They continue to vote you into a leadership position, and in our community that is a great position of trust. I don't know if it's better for Rock Hudson to come into your living room on television to tell you that black women are at risk of infection or if it's better for that local politician to come onto your television to tell you that you are infected. I don't. Right now the black community knows and respects the attorney Johnnie Cochranin some circles, they say we now have two JCs in the black community; one is Jesus Christ and the other [jokingly] is Johnnie Cochran. But the reality is if Johnnie Cochran got on television and said, Hi, I'm Johnnie Cochran and I'm not here to talk about law, I'm not here to talk about the cases that I've won and I'm not here to...I'm here to talk about something a lot more serious. I'm here to talk about HIV and AIDS and what it's doing to our community as a people, I certainly would listen and I believe the community at large would begin to listen. And because of the deep-rooted racism and disrespect for us as a people, and particularly for our leadership, we have not been allowed to pursue those kinds of avenues or to garner the necessary resources to pursue the kinds of avenues that we know would work in our community. I think that those are the kinds of things that need to be done. Certainly, those are the kinds of things that BLCA is trying to do.

Numedx: The Congressional Black Caucus successfully delivered a funding screen initially targeted to African Americans and subsequently to all communities of color. Do you believe that this award has brought communities of color together?

Debra Fraser-Howze: I believe that this award has brought greater enlightenment to the African American community that there is a problem. I know that when we pushed through the idea of having the President declare a State of Emergency, we probably got more resurgence of press around the issue of AIDS in the black community than we had in a long time. A lot of the media has turned their backs on our communities, despite the fact that every hour seven Americans are newly infected with HIV, and now three of those seven Americans are African Americans and we make up 57% of all new infections. It boggles the mind to understand how we can allow this nation to debate issues of whether or not we should use Social Security funds to carry on some other initiatives and we should ensure that the Social Security pool remains intact for subsequent generations, with full knowledge that as long as we have been here, and as long as there has been a Social Security system, the black community has never benefited from the Social Security system in comparison to the overall majority community because we don't live to age 65. How we can allow that debate to take center stage in the Presidential debate and not highlight the fact that African Americans die more due to all chronic illnesses than any other communities, including all other minorities, combined. The general American public has to understand that a black man in Harlem has less of a chance of reaching age 65 than a man in Bangladesh&

We did not get a State of Emergency Declaration from the President. What we got was a statement saying that HIV and AIDS has caused in the African American community a severe and ongoing crisis requiring emergency federal intervention. That is a far cry from an actual legal declaration of a State of Emergency. It did, however, get us the opportunity to go back to work immediately on developing a piece of legislation that would have some long lasting impact on the black community. A hundred and fifty six million dollars in the first year and $245,500,000 in the second year is an abomination when you look at the magnitude of our problem, at the long-term neglect of our health, the long-term neglect of our crisis intervention programs, which are needed to deal with the issues that got us to this very bad place in the first place. It is unbelievable that we still have to go in and the Congressional Black Caucus still has to go in and fight like hell to get $156,000,000 twenty years into an epidemic where the last 15 years we have been a dead or dying community. And that you still find resistance not only from congressional leaders who don't want to deal with AIDS but also congressional leaders who are far in the mix of racism and don't want to deal with black people. And then you have some people in the AIDS community who are afraid that they are going to loose their position of power in the mix of things and their voices begin to sound loudly about what should or should not be done, although it is not as open and at the same time you have a community with a $156,000,000 foot in the door. Because that's all it is. And a $245,500,000 foot in the door as well next year that may, if we play this correctly, allow us to build on a piece of legislation that's going to broaden and serve all communities of color. In that respect, I think that there are many in the African American community who are now working together for the first time. And we are being very very honest about what our strengths and weaknesses are within our organizations and within ourselves. And relying on each other to take on certain roles as we move this agenda forward and understanding that there is very little time to do so. And I think that even though the legislation and the success of the Congressional Black Caucus did not do what we certainly want to do as far as acquiring resources and funding is concerned, the big payoff has been that it brought a new awareness about the epidemic in the African American community and it has forged relationships in the African American community with an AIDS and public health issue that should have been there throughout this epidemic.

Numedx: What does the future hold?

Debra Fraser-Howze: We can go one of two ways. We can get a foothold right now in the American psyche and make it clear that we are aware that we are dying, that we are not living to age 65, that our women are in peril, that our children are being orphaned, and that we will not stand for it anymore. And we will develop a long-range plan to begin to combat our immediate problems and then begin to set ourselves into a position where we do not regress. That's the good way to go. It's going to require an unbelievable amount of work and an unbelievable amount of trust and an unbelievable faith. That's the positive path. Or we could continue to apologize for what we did not know, for what we do not have, and try to combat a growing epidemic with smoke and mirrors. That direction will take us all to an early grave in a pauper's ceremony very much like they used to have when they buried the poor in Potter's Field. So we have two choices in the African American community, and the good thing is, the best thing is, that we have control over our own destiny. That we can now make the decision to control our destiny and to do what it is we need to do to succeed.