Researchers and radio personalities explore links among HIV/AIDS

TORONTO (NNPA) - Researchers and radio personalities do agree with what un-cool parents have been saying all along about today’s hip hop music—it does influence young people when it comes to their choices about sex.

But parents shouldn’t be so quick to pat themselves on the back.

Both the researchers and experts in the hip hop music community that assembled Aug. 13-18 at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada suggest the information young people are getting about sex from music and music videos must be balanced with information at home and in school.

“It’s a social problem all of us have to share,” said Wesley Crichlow, an associate professor in Social Science at the University of Ontario Institute for Technology.

Prof. Crichlow said that because the Black communities in Canada, the Caribbean and the U.S. still associate HIV/AIDS with being a homosexual disease and consider topics of sex taboo, young Blacks have a false sense of security.

“Our youth have not yet begun to understand the seriousness of HIV because our young people see themselves as immune,” he explained.

Because young people under the age of 25 account for half of new HIV and AIDS infections, scientists and activists used the conference as a platform to address the epidemic, often using very frank discussion to address the impact of youth culture and music and its connection with the disease.

During a session called “Hip Hop and Reggae Dance Hall Kings and Queens: Dropping It Like It’s Hot,” the panel of youth health and social workers, radio personalities and a club DJ as well as scholars such as Prof. Crichlow discussed talking openly with young people about lyrics that are overt as well as subtle; and making conscious decisions at clubs and parties where alcohol and drugs often impair teens decisions.

Most importantly, they discussed solutions.

Lisa Skeete, a Canadian radio personality and Black Cultural Heritage instructor with the Toronto District school board, said producers of reggae and dancehall music in Jamaica have in the past packaged condoms with their albums because of the sexually explicit lyrics and dance steps that emulate sexual acts.

“There was that subliminal message, while you’re getting your groove on in the dance hall, don’t forget after put on your condom,” she said.

Miranda Ward was the lone American of the panel of mostly Canadians. The co-founder of Promising Futures, a youth empowerment and health education organization, explained that in the U.S., one way to combat HIV and AIDS is to put on a large-scale campaign similar to entertainer P. Diddy’s “Vote or Die” during the 2004 presidential election.

News Courtesy : finalcall.com News

Tags: HIV