Urban rally against AIDS: more than half of all new HIV and AIDS diagnoses in the United States are among African-Americans. It's about time the country woke up and did something about it, says a growing chorus of black leaders.

Ten years ago Demetrius Meiller was a precocious teenager who would sneak out of his home to attend extravagant balls with his older friends. By age 16 he was fully integrated into the house ball scene of Buffalo, N.Y.

Going to events put on by the House of Prestige and the House of 2DieFor gave the soft-spoken Meiller the comfort level and self-confidence he needed to be openly gay as an African-American in Buffalo. Among the people who strutted and vogued down the runway, he found a family-like structure where he was accepted and nurtured.

But as he was embraced by one culture, he was abandoned by another. When Meiller was just 15, his dad kicked him out of the house for refusing to stop dressing in drag. Before long the homeless youth found himself in the juvenile corrections system, and at 21 he tested positive for HIV.

Today, Meiller, 24, bravely presents himself as one of the many faces of HIV. "It was a blow," he recalls of testing positive. "I was depressed. A lot of friends didn't come around for a while, and some still don't."

Antidepressants and a lot of conversation with his older friends helped Meiller get his life back on track. Now he is an HIV peer educator for New York State's Men of Color Health Awareness Project. Several times a week Meiller talks to young people about safer sex and HIV testing. "I go to bars, community events, high schools, colleges, everywhere," he says. "I mingle and socialize, and I say, 'Are you interested in learning about safe sex?' Some people know how to use a condom and want to know how to make it feel a little better."

Meiller is fighting on the front lines of the HIV pandemic that is devouring African-American communities. Today, blacks make up only about 13% of the U.S. population but account for more than half of all new HIV and AIDS diagnoses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 500,000 African-Americans currently live with HIV or AIDS, and case rates show that African-Americans are 10 times more likely than whites to have AIDS.

Hoping to reverse the trend among young black men like Meiller, the National Minority AIDS Council has begun to look at new ways to address the pandemic. In November the organization delivered a report to Congress with recommendations aimed at containing and treating the disease. "It is a national tragedy that the AIDS crisis has continued unabated in the African-American community for so many years," says physician Beny Primm, the council's chair emeritus. "There is a danger that we view AIDS as a problem that only affects Africa when it remains a real and growing danger in our own backyard. That kind of complacency is killing people, and it has to stop."

The report, which was sent to the Congressional Black Caucus, asks for funding to address a number of key issues seen as contributing to the epidemic among African-Americans. It has been given a thumbs-up by a blue-ribbon panel of some 30 prominent African-Americans. "Perhaps the most important factor in reducing HIV risk for black gay men is the one that usually receives the least attention: eliminating the homophobia and related stigma, discrimination, and violence experienced by many black gay men," says Phill Wilson, head of the Los Angeles-based Black AIDS Institute. "I speak as a black gay man and a person who has been living with HIV and AIDS for more than 20 years."

In September 2006, New York City health department officials published a 2003 survey of residents in which nearly 10% of the men who identified as heterosexual reported having had sex with a man within the past year. Of that group, 62% were men of color.

Preeti Pathela, who conducted the survey, tells The Advocate that 70% of these men reported being married to women. And according to their responses to survey questions, they were less likely than gay-identified men to have used a condom or been tested for HIV recently. "Our message to physicians is to ask about specific sexual Ask-taking activity of patients, not just of those who identify as one group or the other," she says.

While the National Minority AIDS Council is focusing on getting support from national leaders, New York City officials have seen that the city's HIV statistics mirror those of the nation overall. Mayor Michael Bloomberg in November assembled black leaders at a breakfast at Grade Mansion, the mayor's official residence, to focus on the issue. "I don't think people quite understand what is happening, and this is a community that we have to reach out to and stop this in its tracks. We know what to do; shame on us if we don't," the mayor told the group.

Columbia University professor and associate dean Robert Fullilove, the author of the National Minority AIDS Council report, said his goal was to take the "HIV and black America" discussion away from the cognoscenti and mainstream it by involving groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Congressional Black Caucus. "Maybe we do too much talking to each other, too much preaching to the choir," he says. "Reaching out to other groups, it seems to me, has always been the way to go. When you mainstream the discussion about HIV instead of making it a closed discussion, then it becomes normal."

Wilson says there is an opportunity now that the balance of power has shifted in Washington, D.C. But the question of whether legislators will pay heed to the report remains open. "On the heels of the November elections there is a lot of reevaluation on where the federal government is on a whole lot of issues, but so far HIV and AIDS have not been included," he says. "This report has the attention of members of Congress; whether that attention is sufficient to generate early change, we will see."

For his part, Meiller went to the New York State capital, Albany, in November to lobby for funding for HIV programs. He doesn't have stable housing and needs better medical insurance, yet he's out there fighting for the protection of his peers.

Recently Meiller founded his own ball house, called the House of LaBella, where he is the proud housemother, organizing his own balls. "I perform sometimes," he says, "but I try to use it to [send] a message of safer sex, encouraging the black community or [gays] in general."

Meiller hopes one day to work full-time for an AIDS service organization that targets youths. "We have to advocate for the new generation," he says. "The risk is so high; we have to change that."

MY POSITIVE SPACE

While established Web sites like Poz.com and HIVnet.com provide personal-ad listings specifically for HIV-positive people, OneCity.com could provide a bona fide online community for them along the lines of MySpace. Recently launched in Los Angeles and expected to roll out to nine other markets across the country in the coming months, the site features customizable profiles that link to one another and boast cutting-edge options such as video blogs. "We're trying to create a standalone destination, not just a site to come to check if someone's answered your personal ad," says the site's founder, Peter Brook.

OneCity also offers community service and health reference areas, in addition to a "trading post" of job and roommate listings and goods for sale. There's coverage of news, politics, and pop culture. And there's the possibility of a romantic connection. "In an era where the disease is treatable and maintainable for many, just staying alive isn't all we want," Brook says. 'We want love too."

Edozien is a journalist based in New York City.