July 2, 2009

Cornelius Baker—Putting the Fight Against HIV Where It Belongs: Center Stage

In 1983, Cornelius Baker arrived in Washington, DC, for a theater internship at the Kennedy Center, where he witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of HIV. During the past two decades, Baker has served as the executive director of the National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA) and the executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, which services the LGBT and HIV communities in Washington. Currently, he serves on the board of the Black AIDS Institute and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS national policy. He is also a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Panel on Clinical Practices, and he’s the national policy advisor for the National Black Gay Men’s Advocacy Coalition (NBGMAC).

When were you first introduced to the virus?

My major in college was Scandinavian and Russian literature—that’s the foundation of all theater that we know. I did an internship at the Kennedy Center, here in Washington in 1983. We didn’t know really what was going on. We heard the rumors; we heard the whispers; and we saw the articles in The New York Times and the New York Native. We still had hopes that [the virus] was something very minor, that it was just a certain sect of gay people within the gay community. But one of the things that was very clear was that a lot of gay people who were infected were in theater. You couldn’t help but be concerned and involved.  

In those early days, you were trying to figure out how not to get it. It’s strange to me because, today, I don’t know if gay men spend their lives thinking how not to get. They shouldn’t be so consumed with it in the way that we were because there’s information now.

What made you transition from theater into HIV prevention and national policy?

  Over time, my moment to go to New York for theater passed and the epidemic didn’t go away. I knew that, ultimately, whatever solutions there were, they also needed to come from Washington, DC. Gradually, I got involved in fund-raising for Whitman-Walker Clinic and became more political. It’s hard to be creative when everything around you is dying. It’s then that you have to make a decision. My decision was that gay men needed to survive and we needed to do everything possible to make that happen.

I care about every person that is infected, whether it’s men, women or children in the United States, Africa or Asia. But I think it’s really important to remember that, in the beginning, this was about the lives of gay men. We’re at a point right now where black gay men in particular have been made to feel frivolous or that we haven’t cared enough. Whether it’s a Reggie Williams or a Craig G. Harris or a Phill Wilson, we [black AIDS activists] made a choice to fight for the civil rights of our community. We could have done other things, but we chose not to.

What is your role as the national policy advisor for the National Black Gay Men’s Advocacy Coalition?

My role entails reminding black gay males that they have power. It’s very interesting to see a community that has given so much but is still really beaten down. We raised $2 billion dollars in funding for prevention, care, treatment and housing alone, but why hasn’t that worked in the lives of black gay men? It’s about reminding ourselves that we have these assets, that we’ve developed and our community has chosen, for whatever reason, not to apply those assets in our lives, or we’ve chosen not to seek them. It’s also about looking at new solutions. We can’t be stuck in what we did in 1984 and ’85. We have to constantly grow and find new solutions.

In your opinion, how does the way the current message of prevention is packaged differ from when HIV was first discovered?

We’ve lost focus. All people want to do is be happy. They want to love and be loved. They want to have sex in a way that is about pleasure and enjoyment. That’s what it is, and we made it about so much more, but it really isn’t. The reason why white women have a low rate of infection is because the dream works for them. The reality is that, in our country, we live in a world where if you are white and heterosexual, you don’t get most of these diseases and society protects your dream of happiness.

Imagine this: If you’re 14 and you’re a black gay man and you’re told you’re the most fantastic thing on earth and you are all that society believes in, then you are not going to be out on the streets at four in the morning looking for someone to love you. You’re not because you already have that. You know that your mommy and daddy love you, and you have to survive. You’re protected.

People who get HIV now are people who are not protected. We have to change that. We can’t be confused about this. It is a political fight for survival. Yes, it’s an insidious disease, which has found its way in the world. But it has specifically found its way into the lives of people we haven’t cared about. Look where it is: It’s in Africa; it’s in black gay America; it’s in the world of drug addicts—all the people who, for over two decades, our society determined didn’t matter. Yes, there are a few random people who have been caught in the cross fire, but I’m not confused.

Where can the black community start to tackle the virus?

It starts with whether you have a vision of yourself living and being healthy. When I say healthy, I don’t mean that in just a sterile way. I mean living in a world where you can have infinite joy. We have to feel that we can succeed. I think for a long time we felt that we couldn’t succeed. As a community, we have to bring it back together. You have to have a community that’s about surviving and taking care of itself. That’s when prevention works. Treatment is only good when it’s applied to people who believe that they deserve it.

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