November 7, 2007

Desert Storm

Paul Kawata, executive director of the National Minority AIDS Council

For two decades, the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) has been a leading advocate for people of color living with or affected by HIV. Today, November 7, marks the beginning of the organization’s United States Conference on AIDS—the largest AIDS-service-provider gathering in the country—uniting 3,000 professionals in the community, including physicians, advocates and caseworkers in Palm Springs, California. Before jetting off to the desert, NMAC Executive Director Paul Kawata spoke with POZ about the conference, fighting HIV in minority communities and what he demands of next year’s presidential hopefuls.

POZ: This year’s conference has an unusual theme.

Paul Kawata: It’s “One Family, One Voice, One Spirit.” In Palm Springs, there’s a very strong Native American community. Every other block in the city is actually owned by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. And so we thought it would be an important opportunity to highlight HIV/AIDS within the Native-American community. So we’re doing things with the native community that we haven’t done before. For example, we’re doing a Grand Entrance, which is a huge thing that they do at powwows with singing, dancing and drums. And we’re very excited about incorporating a Grand Entrance and having an AIDS theme.

What other major happenings can we expect there?

It’s NMAC’s 20th anniversary. Anniversaries, typically in AIDS, are very bittersweet. You’re never quite sure if you should celebrate or not. But we want to at least mark it. And so we’re going to be having a concert with our new board member, jazz singer Nancy Wilson. And one of the things I’d like your folks to know is that there’s no government money and no conference money that was used to pay for the food at this 20th anniversary free concert, and Nancy is donating her time.

We have 10 areas of focus, with everything from housing to treatment to prevention to care to international issues to skills building, so there really is a diversity for the variety of communities that are impacted by HIV/AIDS. And we really want to make sure that, regardless of whether you live in a rural community, if you’re a young person, if you’re a gay man, if you’re a lesbian, that there’s someplace for you in this meeting.

NMAC organizes other conferences each year, such as the HIV Prevention Leadership Summit (scheduled for Detroit next June). What distinguishes USCA?

We’ve been doing this conference for about 12 years. And it’s about skills building. And it’s really about bringing together people at the front lines of the epidemic to make sure that they have the latest information and the latest skills to effectively run their organizations, to provide services and to stop the spread of the epidemic.

What’s the primary obstacle to fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic?

The Bush administration. I think that it feels as though we are no longer fighting the epidemic, but we are fighting ideology. Because, for example, now we have very limited primary prevention in the United States.

And our concern is several-fold. Number one, we want to make sure there is still a commitment to primary prevention and not just testing and counseling. Number two, we want to make sure that this money gets distributed not just to hospital emergency rooms, which we do think are important, but also to community-based organizations on the front lines who have access to communities at risk that other people don’t have. And we don’t want those communities and their access discounted.

For whom will you vote next November?

[laughs] As executive director of the National Minority AIDS Council, I run a nonpartisan organization. And I am a nonpartisan person [laughs].

I just want to make sure that there are good, comprehensive AIDS policies that are put out by the candidates and that there is a dialogue about HIV somewhere in one of these debates. Although we were pleased that there was some discussion at the Howard University debate in June, we’re very interested in making sure that when the Republican and the Democratic candidates debate, that they both talk about their platform around HIV/AIDS.

Many AIDS organizations have tried to start a dialogue with these candidates. What have you thought of their responses?

Senator Clinton just released her AIDS plan and I actually think it’s very good. It is critical and essential that we keep the pressure on to make sure that whoever gets the presidency has a comprehensive, international and domestic policy. We cannot forget the domestic epidemic.

What isn’t the current administration providing?

This administration does this thing called DEBIs [Diffusion of Effective Behavioral Interventions], which are community-based, scientifically validated prevention mechanisms [education to help change at-risk behaviors]. And I think they’re wonderful, but there’s not enough of them and there’s not enough diversity of them. And that some of them that they have are so expensive to implement that community-based organizations can’t do it.

What we need to do is make sure is that we have enough DEBIs that they reach enough of the sub-populations. For example, for women, there is one program called SISTA, and it’s for black women. Now, if you’re Latina, if you’re Asian or Native American or if you’re a white woman, this program isn’t really set for you. But there’s no other program that does primary prevention for women.

What differences have you seen in the infection rates among the black community, the Hispanic community and other minority groups?

Well, particularly for the black and Hispanic community, they’ve been disproportionately [adversely] impacted by this epidemic, and they continue to be, which I think is the real tragedy of this. And if you look at it, women and black gay men are the sub-communities most impacted that need the most services and need the most attention.

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Previous Comments:

Alfredo, Baltimore, 2007-11-17 12:35:51
The USCA was a great way for more thatn 3,000 people to dialogue regarding current HIV/AIDS issues. It is was great to see so many people come together to discuss current and future prevention and intervention plans for their region or nat'l level.