DaBaby – 11 Organizations Offer Private Meeting To Educate Him About HIV/AIDS

DaBaby

DaBaby – 11 Organizations Offer Private Meeting To Educate Him About HIV/AIDS 

A group comprised of 11 organizations are offering to help educate Dababy, amidst him facing backlash for making negative remarks about HIV/AIDS and the LGBTQ+ community.

The rapper has apologized twice on social media, after being removed from several festival lineups.

The following organizations: Arianna’s Center, Black AIDS Institute, GLAAD, the Normal Anomaly Initiative, Prevention Access Campaign, Relationship Unleashed, the 6:52 Project Foundation, and leaders from the Gilead COMPASS Initiative including Southern AIDS Coalition, Emory University, the University of Houston and Wake Forest University, penned an open letter inviting him to meet so that they can offer education, specifically about HIV/AIDS in the hope that he can learn the facts and pass along the intel to his fans.

Dashawn Usher, GLAAD’s associate director for communities of color, said,

“Together with leaders in the HIV field, we are asking for a meeting with DaBaby to educate and enlighten him, and all Americans, about the facts: HIV is preventable and with treatment, it can become undetectable and therefore untransmittable. DaBaby can be a powerful and influential voice where Black Americans need it most. We urge him to learn the facts and use his platform to share the truth that can save lives.”

The full open letter can be found below.

We, the undersigned, represent organizations leading the fight to prevent HIV and provide care and treatment for people living with HIV, especially Black LGBTQ people across the Southern United States.

We heard your inaccurate and harmful comments at Rolling Loud and have read your Instagram apology. However, at a time when HIV continues to disproportionately impact Black Americans and queer and transgender people of color, a dialogue is critical. We must address the miseducation about HIV, expressed in your comments, and the impact it has on various communities.

2021 marks the 40th year of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the greatest obstacles in our work to end HIV are the compounded stigmas attached to anti-Blackness, living with HIV, misogyny, and anti-LGBTQ attitudes and stereotypes, all of which are fueled by misinformation. Fear and stigma keep people, particularly Black Americans, from accessing HIV prevention or care that White Americans have historically accessed and continue to access more easily. We believe you now have an opportunity to not just move past this unfortunate incident, but to use your platform and celebrity to heal not harm.

We believe that anyone can be an HIV advocate by amplifying: how there is medication (PrEP) that can prevent people from getting HIV with one pill a day, how routine treatment stops the virus from being passed on by people living with HIV, how people receiving HIV care can survive and thrive while living with it, and how open and empathetic conversations eliminate stigma. You can be a powerful and influential voice, especially across your home base in the South, where the Black community’s needs are notoriously under-represented across every public spectrum. We encourage you to share this information with your fans and followers, and become an agent of truth and change.

Music artists have historically led the way to lift up understanding of HIV and accelerate LGBTQ acceptance. Several artists and platforms have spoken up against you. While we appreciate their stand, we also invite them to take action and to do their part to end HIV by supporting organizations like ours serving people who are Black, LGBTQ and/or living with HIV.

As mentioned in your latest apology, education is important. We agree. GLAAD and Gilead Science’s 2020 State of HIV Stigma Study found that 90% of Americans believe “there is stigma around HIV,” that “people are quick to judge those with HIV,” and “people make assumptions when someone is tested for HIV.” There were a significant number of people (40%) who did not know that HIV can be treated. Nearly 60% wrongfully believe it is “important to be careful around people living with HIV to avoid catching it.”

Here are the facts:

– People living with HIV today, when on effective treatment, lead long and healthy lives and cannot sexually transmit HIV. Treatment can suppress the virus to a point where it is no longer detected in a person’s body. When it is undetected, it is untransmittable, the key message of the U=U campaign.

– Approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. have HIV. 13% of them don’t know it, reinforcing the need for HIV testing and to end stigma around HIV testing.

Should Dababy accept their invitation?