Not in My Family: AIDS in the African-American Community.

Not in My Family: AIDS in the African-American Community by Gil L. Robertson IV Agate, December 2006 $16, ISBN 1-932-84124-5

I don't know anyone who hasn't witnessed someone close to them who has either died of AIDS or who is currently living with the deadly disease--and I know a lot of people.

AIDS is the leading cause of death among young African American women, and it's arguably one of the most unrecognized and least-feared killers in the black community because of ignorance and denial. This deadly social cocktail is both the theme and reason for the penetrating and heartfelt perspectives provided in Not in My Family: AIDS in the African-American Community, a collection of essays edited by Gil L. Robertson IV [above].

The voices range from the Reverend Al Sharpton to singer Patti LaBelle and a "popular hairstylist," Shawna C. Ervin, also known as Virtue, and even some thoughts from a porn star named Mr. Marcus. Once you open the book, however, LaBelle becomes Sharpton becomes Virtue, and each blends with the other to present a sobering and often prophetic picture of HIV/AIDS and its affects on family, friends and the black community.

To say that Not in My Family is a sad, melancholy book would be unfair. To say it is an uplifting book would not be accurate, either. It is, in essence, a picture of the African American community taken through the lenses of a strange and different kind of heartache that crept up on us like Freddie Kruger and continues to haunt us even as we lay half awake, like Mr. Marcus, who manages to acknowledge the danger of the disease, while admitting he often doesn't wear a condom while "working."

"I can't say that it [AIDS] really truly bothers me, though, because when it comes down to it, I enjoy what I do," he writes in his essay rifled "Something's Gotta Give," in the middle of Robertson's book. "Besides, there are so many things that people can die from other than sex." I found the line chilling, but worse, I found the attitude not that unusual.

In Not in My Family, Robertson has achieved a more significant goal than simply assembling voices. He has created a collectively challenging thought, which is the basis for all progressive dialogue and change because if something isn't thought about, even briefly, then it can't carry an agenda or promote an idea.

The essays here, similar in character and structure to those in Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America--An Anthology edited by Herb Boyd and Robert L. Allen (Ballantine Books, 1995), carries a sense of urgency of the here-and-now. It is wet with tears, but it also full of love, compassion and the strength--as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said--" ... to go on anyhow."

The fact that this devastating disease is underreported and almost invisible in the political discourse is another theme that rises from the passages like smelly steam off an urban grate.

When the boogieman sneaks inside your family and takes a brother, mother, sister, father, wife and/or husband, the impact is deep and often far-flung. Still, the voices in this book have a haunting air of isolation about them, no matter the common call for someone, somebody, and somewhere to do something.

There is also a nagging reality to the book that--perhaps unintentionally--exposes the powerlessness and divisiveness that is cruising through the ranks like a slow bullet, laying fertile ground for the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Fortunately, there is Randall Robinson, the former head of TransAfrica and the author of the seminal work The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks (Penguin Group, 2002), who brings these voices together and connects the dots in a way only someone who has been wounded by many different spears can fathom.

He starts off talking about his brother, the groundbreaking newscaster Max Robinson who died of AIDS almost 20 years ago, and manages to teach an inspired lesson about the bigger picture that includes prisons, poverty, and a book called The River by Edward Hooper (Back Bay Books, 1999) that meticulously traces the disease back to a 1950s research project in the Congo that went horribly wrong.

Still, he writes, knowing the source of the problem is helpful in regards to focus and identification, but the real change will have to come from those most affected.

"Other communities have effectively mobilized to combat this disease" he writes. "It is interesting that the black community has not done likewise. I think there is a 'not in my family' element to this. There are some class implications as well. As we embarked upon the Civil Rights Movement, we were all in the same boat, and class was meaningless. It didn't make a difference what you had or didn't have. We were together because we had no choice."

Right now, as Robertson says in the first line of the Introduction to his book: "Black America, we have a problem" and the choice is to either ignore it, or face it head-on before we are all run over. He addresses the problem with pertinent information that includes a list of resources and terminology about the disease.

Mostly, though, the book proves to be a potent mix of experiences and insights guaranteed to make you think, and do something.

--Reviewed by Joseph P.. Blake

Joseph P. Blake is a playwright, freelance travel writer, adjunct professor at Temple University and a 26-year veteran of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.