The Cure on Black AIDS Day (via Huffington Post)

For the past nine years the seventh day of February has been set aside to highlight an ongoing crisis: the Black AIDS epidemic.

It's officially called National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (Black AIDS Day for short) and every year as it arrives I think to myself, "What will it take to end the disease that is ravaging my people?"

The statistics hit like a blow to the gut. Nearly half of all new HIV cases in the U.S. are among African Americans, even though we represent just 12 percent of the population.

The virus touches every quarter of my community: In 2006, black teenagers (aged 13-19) accounted for 69 percent of new AIDS cases among teens. Black women accounted for 66 percent of new AIDS cases among U.S. women. And more new HIV infections occurred among young black gay/bisexual men than in any other segment of the U.S. population.

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