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GLAAD Issues Full Page Ad Demanding Apology From ABC Over Misleading Statements On AIDS

The View aired some very inappropriate information regarding HIV/AIDS in the African-American community. Sherri Shepherd and guest host D.L. Hughley both perpetuated some incredibly dangerous and misleading information regarding the disease. Hughley stated on the show “When you look at the prevalence of HIV in the African American Community, it’s primarily young women who are getting it from men who are on the down low. That’s the thing.” Shepherd went on to add her voice to this stating “The down low is black men who’ve been going out. They are having sex with men and they’re not telling their girlfriends or their wives that they’re gay and their husbands, as well. And it’s very prevalent with African American women because they come home and have sex with their wives or their girlfriends. And they’re not telling them that they’re gay. . .It’s so big in the Black community with women because they’re having unprotected sex with men who have been having sex with… with men.”

Unfortunately, the two were completely off since the majority of new cases are not coming via bisexual men of any racial or ethnic background having sex with women.

At the time, Get Equal Now and GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) voiced their dismay about these statements, and called for a retraction. That has yet to arrive, and GLAAD has gone one further now. They have put out a full page ad in Variety demanding an apology for those statements and clarification.

GLAAD’s Senior Director of Programs, Rashad Robinson, stated “ABC now knows that it put out dangerous and false information about HIV/AIDS on its airwaves, yet the network still refuses to take responsibility. ABC and The View’s refusal to correct these inaccurate remarks comes at the expense of African American gay and bisexual men, straight African American women and millions of audience members who need facts about HIV/AIDS, not myths. It’s extremely disheartening to see a program that usually covers our community with respect, unwilling to correct this serious lapse in editorial judgment.”

The press release went on to say “The kind of misinformation espoused on The View fuels stigma and undermines efforts to end the AIDS epidemic in our communities. AIDS is too important an issue to allow myths and misinformation to go unaddressed. According the Black AIDS Institute, every nine and a half minutes someone in this country is infected with HIV. Nearly 50 percent of the new HIV/AIDS cases, 50 percent of people living with HIV, and 50 percent of the annual AIDS related deaths in the U.S. are Black. AIDS is the third leading cause of death for Black men and women aged 35-44 in the U.S.”

That African-American women have been getting AIDS from African-American bisexual men has been a myth for some time and it continues to stigmatize homosexuality and bisexuality inside the African-American community.

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