“We’ve really made an effort to change the landscape of

GMHC made sure the posters were of high quality, for reasons deeper than aesthetics.

“We’ve really made an effort to change the landscape of [HIV-related] materials,” Roque says. “Previously, materials that targeted people of color were Xeroxed and of poor quality. You didn’t really see images of people of color in the gay community that really lifted them up.”
In October, GMHC launched another campaign, decidedly different from “I Love My Boo.” Capitalizing on the prominent role that many pastors’ wives play in church culture, the “First Ladies Care” initiative places the photos of those wives on hand-held fans distributed at Sunday services—with information on testing, safe sex, and the importance of HIV discussion stressed on the back.

Brooklyn’s First Baptist Church of Crown Heights is the campaign’s first congregation, and that church’s prominent first lady, Ellen Norman, is its first spokesmodel. Having female role models like Norman encouraging HIV education and discussion is imperative, says Alicia Heath-Toby, director of GMHC’s Women’s Institute.

“We wanted to empower women of color to engage in discussions around sexuality and prevention and holding women of color very high while doing that,” Heath-Toby says.

GMHC is planning to bring the program to other black churches in the city, and it may spread to other areas outside the organization’s purview.
“The fans have really caught on,” says Krishna Stone, assistant director of community relations at GMHC. “People are mailing them to their family and friends who go to churches in other states so their churches will think about launching a campaign—they’ve gone down south, up north, everywhere. It’s very exciting.”

Women are targeted in GMHC’s “We’re Not Taking This Lying Down” campaign, which features images of women in authoritative poses with messages like “HIV. Get Tested. Get Control” in newspaper ads, telephone kiosks, and on fliers passed out at community events. A photo exhibit of HIV-positive women of color, launched as an antistigma measure, was featured in various venues throughout New York this fall.

Roque says it’s important for GMHC and other HIV organizations to remember African-Americans are as varied as any other minority group.

“We realized that all black men don’t respond to the same message, so we have to have a variety of things and we have to reach people via their social networks in ways that are really specific to whatever it is they might be into,” Roque says. “Sometimes we target congregations, sometimes we go after the Ball community, which is another social network, or we work within beauty shops. Sometimes we work within the network of sex parties and reach people with messages that speak to them inside the culture of that social network.”

Los Angeles–based AIDS Healthcare Foundation is betting sex will be an effective tool in getting people’s attention—the group has a new campaign launching this winter called “This is Me, Raw,” featuring 14 men, several of color, talking about their experiences with HIV while they take off items of clothing. In the two-minute-long videos, which AHF is considering making part of a national TV and online campaign, all the men end their conversation completely naked—though viewers don’t see anything X-rated. The intention is to get people to speak honestly about sex and AIDS, to remind people how intertwined they are, and to show there’s nothing about either to be ashamed of.

“Inside this context of being raw, we mean being real, and we intentionally picked up on the double entendre, given the prevalence of barebacking [sex without a condom],” says Whitney Engeran, AHF’s public health division director. “We want to really start a conversation with people about being raw and truthful about HIV.”

In the videos, AHF intentionally cast a diverse group of men—white, black, Asian, Latino—betting that the variety of faces will cast a wide net. Instead of launching into these men’s sexual orientation or describing their ethnicity, the pieces all begin with the men introducing themselves and saying what they do for a living. “We wanted to find a common human thread” in the videos, says AHF program manager Bradley Estrin, who came up with the idea for the campaign, which was funded through a grant.

AHF works a lot with minority communities in south and east Los Angeles, sending mobile units to those areas to help with testing, along with health and medication information. Engeran says it’s important for his organization to know its audience and to respond appropriately.

“If we talk about knowing your status and knowing your health [with people of color] and stay away from some of those things that are hot-button issues in certain cultural contexts—whether it be homosexuality or feelings about masculinity—we’re more successful,” he says. “[We’ll say] to faith-based communities, ‘I’m not here to convince you about biblical tenets, I’m here to talk to you about the health of your parishioners, and that when you know you’re positive and on treatment, you’re much less likely to spread the virus.”

Engeran stresses the point that he hates the term down low, which for him and many others implies black men, specifically, creeping around and spreading sexually transmitted diseases, like HIV. Campaigns like “Greater Than AIDS,” “I Love My Boo,” “This is Me, Raw,” and even “First Ladies Care” flip the script on down low by presenting a different notion of black sexual identity—one’s that informed and honorable and encourages people to lead by example.

“I respond to things that relate to me,” says GMHC’s Alicia Heath-Toby. “So when we couple messages of prevention and anti-stigma with talking honestly about sexuality, and those images look like we do, we’re more likely to engage in conversations and behavior in a much more powerful, positive way.”