Local stars to shine light on HIV/AIDS awareness

This Saturday, local entertainers will use their talents to raise AIDS awareness. A Night Full of Stars

Saturday, 6:30 p.m,

Kelly-Strayhorn Theater

Sponsored by the Southwestern PA AIDS Coalition

$10 at the door or free if a person gets tested at one of the participating free sites before the event.

This Saturday, local entertainers will use their talents to raise AIDS awareness.

The Southwestern PA AIDS Coalition will present a talent show— including hip-hop artists Miss Money and Jacquay Hosey and female impersonator, singer and dancer Akasha Lestat.

More than 3,000 people in Southwestern Pennsylvania have HIV or AIDS, according to the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force. Two-thirds of these cases are in Allegheny County, and as recently as 2008, blacks accounted for nearly 50 percent of new infections.

“A Night Full of Stars” is designed to specifically reach out to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer members of Pittsburgh’s black community.

“In [the LGBTQ] community, the statistics are really bad and the infection rates are really high,” said Amir Clemons, a minority disease specialist at the Allegheny County Health Department.

Clemons — who is also one of three hosts for the event — thinks using a talent show will speak to this target audience in a different tone. He said it is important to do outreach to this group because it is the fastest-growing population with AIDS in the United States.

Terry Fluker, chairman of a prevention committee at the Southwestern Pennsylvania AIDS Planning Coalition, said that each artist participating in the show is expected to incorporate information about HIV/AIDS into his or her act.

“The venue is open to the public but the target is GLBTQ — so, most of the artists are from that community or those that embrace it or are gay-friendly,” he said.

Chris Greer, a spoken word artists and poet, will be using his poem “Wake Up Call” to discuss different aspects of HIV/AIDS and share statistics. Greer said that the day he found out he’d have to include HIV/AIDS in his performance, he’d already been working on the poem.

“Basically, we’re putting it out there that a lot of people don’t want to to talk about it a lot of people haven’t had a chance to hear their voices heard…You don’t have to wait for someone big to say it,” he said, explaining that locals celebrities have the power to raise awareness about the issue.

Another way that Fluker and several others are trying to raise awareness is with the church.

Fluker is also a minister in Pittsburgh and founder of Love Ministry Outreach Victors, a religious program that promotes AIDS awareness.  He hopes that bringing AIDS education and awareness to the church will help break down the stigma surrounding the disease as he feels the black community is a very faith-based one.

“Usually the church sets the foundation for life issues and choices,” Fluker said. “So why not talk about HIV/AIDS?”

Other faith-based campaigns also seek to promote AIDS awareness in religious communities. Last October, the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force launched the “Fighting AIDS Inspires the Heart,” Initiative — or, more simply, the “F.A.I.T.H.” Initiative.

Tony Anderson, the coordinator of this project, explained that it will work with the Pittsburgh’s religious community by creating programs tailored for various groups and raising awareness through special events.

F.A.I.T.H. will host a conference at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in May that will bring together leaders from the religious community, health professionals and social workers.

“We’re coming from both an outreach perspective and a science perspective,” Anderson said.

“The information out there really is not accurate — people don’t understand transmission,” he added. “Stigma still trumps today.”

Anderson stressed the importance of promoting AIDS awareness within the church to break down said stigma.

“The disease doesn’t discriminate and it doesn’t limit itself to whom it has an impact on. You start looking at the composition of the community as a whole, and the faith community is a vital part of that composition. If you are missing them, then you are losing the battle,” he said.

While Anderson and Fluker both look to the church as a vital center and the potential future for AIDS awareness in the black community, Pitt senior and Rainbow Alliance member Greerlin Thomas has other feelings.

“I’ve actually stopped going to church. It’s not really something I can do,” he said, remembering a time he was at church with his mother during his childhood. The pastor was talking about the movie “The Birdcage,” in which the two main characters are a gay couple.

“I remember distinctly him saying it can’t possibly be a family-friendly film because they are gay,” he said.

Thomas thinks this particular type of homophobia is rooted in fear or racism and the sense that members of the black community need to be strong.

“To be gay was a white-person thing. If you are a person of color and LGBTQ, there is no place for you [in the black community],” he said.

Thomas estimates that of the 40 to 50 active members of Rainbow Alliance, about five are black.

Although Rainbow Alliance has not recently sponsored events specifically targeted at the black LGBTQ community, Thomas said the office has educational literature and books available on the subject as well as free condoms. Each semester Rainbow Alliance also hosts a safe sex workshop.

Performers for “A Night of Stars”

Akasha Lestat — female impersonator, dancer and performer

Ira Cambric — dancer

Jacquay Hosey, also known as Young Folk — hip-hop artist

Jmorr — R&B singer

Miss Money — hip-hop artist

Sincere — poet and spoken-word artist

Yoyo — mime artist