This coming Friday on February 7th we will recognize the 21st annual National Black HIV & AIDS Awareness Day. As the name suggests, this day was created to focus on the specific epidemic of HIV & AIDS in black communities. And like everything that racism and bigotry touches, the AIDS crisis has been no different. We are not going to go into the full history behind AIDS as we will discuss that in June when we finally cover the AIDS epidemic. However, in this episode we will discuss the many biases and overt as well as subtle racism that prevented early treatment in black and brown communities. We will also give a fairly thorough explanation of HIV and AIDS and address some of the stigma around the virus.