Sherri Shepherd's Dangerous Commentary on HIV

Sherri Shepherd is a comedienne. She's also an actress, a co-host of The View, a Taurus, the author of the book Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break, and an evangelical Christian.

Yes, Sherri Shepherd is a lot of things. But she is by no means an expert on public health or HIV. But that didn't stop her from waxing on about HIV rates within African American populations on yesterday's episode of The View. Sure, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But what Sherri Shepherd said on The View was not only dangerous, it furthered stereotypes that only stand to set public health backwards.

During their infamous Hot Topics segment, the ladies of The View (joined by guest hosts D.L. Hughley and Thomas Roberts) chatted a bit about the FDA policy that bans gay men from donating blood. During the conversation, an article on Slate.com by William Saletan was referenced, where Saletan argued that if the FDA was going to ban gay men from donating blood because of a risk of HIV getting into the blood supply, then the FDA ought to also ban other high risk groups, including African American women. As Saletan noted in his article, African American women are 18 times more likely than white women to contract HIV.

Saletan wasn't arguing that we should ban African American women from donating blood. What he was doing was pointing out that if the FDA is going to label one entire group of people under the universal umbrella as "high risk" (which is what the FDA does with gay men, who are 15 times more likely to contract HIV than heterosexuals), then why not label other groups of people under that banner, too? Or, better yet as Saletan notes, rather than paint broad brush strokes that encompass entire populations, why not deal with blood donations on an individual basis and not ban entire segments of the population? Complicated stuff, and certainly politically touchy.

Enter Sherri Shepherd. Her thoughts on why HIV rates are so high among African American women?

"[HIV} is so big in the black community with women because they've been having unprotected sex with men who have been having sex with men," Shepherd said. In other words, men on the "down low" are responsible for amazingly high rates of HIV among African American women.

As the group RENEWL points out, Shepherd's comments fall back on years of mythology that closeted or bisexual men are responsible for blowing up HIV within the African American community. As they note, "This is a dangerous myth that only further hinders fact-based HIV/AIDS prevention efforts in the black community." And now they're calling on Sherri Shepherd to retract her comments, and hoping that you'll join them in sending a note to The View co-host.

BlackGayGossip.com further unpacks Shepherd's comments, with some back-up from the Centers for Disease Control.

"According to the CDC, although African-Americans make up only 13% of the U.S. population, we account for about half (49%) of the people who get HIV/AIDS. Not to bust your bubble, but it’s not THAT MUCH down low sex going on," BlackGayGossip.com writes. They further argue that Shepherd's comments fail to contextualize the epidemic of HIV in a way that does justice to reality. They say that Shepherd's comments are dangerous for three distinct reasons:

• It assumes that all gay, bisexual or trans men have HIV;
• It fails to take into consideration that HIV gets spread in a variety of ways, from heterosexual sex to needle sharing;
• Bad information about how HIV is spread has plagued African American communities for years, and has only exacerbated HIV rates.

And therein lies the danger of Shepherd's comments. Without nuance, without context, and without a substantive discussion about the broader impact of HIV on the African American community (or any community, for that matter), her soundbyte serves to only reinforce dangerous stereotypes.

As RENWL pleads, "Ms. Shepherd, we respectfully ask you to publicly retract your statement that black women are primarily contracting HIV because they are sleeping with black "downlow" men who aren't using condoms. This is simply not true."

You can join their call here, and urge Sherri Shepherd to back down from her comments that 'down low' men are solely responsible for the explosion of HIV among African American women. And check out the segment that aired on yesterday's episode here.

Photo credit: samhsa