My group of friends holds each other accountable.
For the last several years, now that we all shared long stints as single men working on ourselves, our accountability-holding shun through in medicines. Each of us, for one reason or another, had a daily pill to take.
One of my friends, it was blood pressure (because we’re at that age where blood pressure could require a pill). For another it might be Stribild, or Triumeq. For me, it was daily Descovy for PrEP to prevent HIV.
Then, one by one, my accountability circle started to dwindle. My friends were switching to injectable HIV prevention and treatment therapies. The one thing that made us all the same in Black gay culture had become pills. Now, here we are, different again.
But this time, I’m proud that my friends get a little breathing room without a daily reminder of what’s living with them.
I met Doctor Daniel Driffin long before he added the doctor of public health to his credentials. Back then, just like now, we bond over whiskey and bald headed hoe shit—despite neither of us being bald headed, nor hoes.
Judge me later…
But no matter how many accolades Daniel adds to his wall, or letters he adds before or after his name, one thing I know for sure about my friend: he will not minimize the lives of people living with HIV.
Every time I speak with him, he peeps me to new ways that some of the most profound and powerful people I know are relegated to cleans-and-dirties, or sifted out with sweeping “ddf”.
I would not be who I am today without the lives of men and women who chose to boldly live with HIV. They’ve done the work to turn quibbling in our culture to action, and action to therapies that I access every month. This is my conversation with a Black man who is changing our culture. He speaks of where the journey started for him and what’s ahead.
Support for The Conversation comes from NAESM, Inc. This episode was previously recorded during the National Leadership Conference in St. Louis, Missouri.
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