Community
The prison system accounts for about half of the areas that carries the HIV/AIDS virus. Most of them being men, but there is a spread within the female population. This being the area that carries the poorest African Americans, they do not have the access to healthcare; they participate in the active epidemic of needle exchange, and they do not spread "clean" drugs throughout the prisons.
Interview with Willie Johnson Sr.
J: Hello, can you please state your name and where you were incarcerated?
W: Hello, my name is Willie Johnson Sr., and I was incarcerated in the Ridgeland Correctional Facility in Ridgeland, S.C. for about eight years.
J: Can you talk about the experience that you experienced while you were incarcerated in prison?
W: The experience was an interesting one. I was there on a ten-year prison sentence but fortunately I was able to be released earlier. The things you see in prison is something that not most will ever want to see in their life. It changes your outlook on life and it changes the things that you think are right or the things you feel like you should be doing because those things are not important anymore.
J: Can you speak on the access to drugs in the prison system? Are they accessible, meaning do they circulate the prison system at a regular rate like if they were outside the jail or no?
W: Well the prison system for some people is like a regular day for some of the people in there. At some point, the jail becomes normal, so they have people who bring the drugs into the jail for them, like family or friends. There are corrupt correctional officers in the prison system, they go home and bring the drugs into the prison and sell them back to the “drug dealers” of the prison. It is an interesting cycle honestly.
J: We sometimes hear about the things that go on in the prison system, but it is interesting to hear about it firsthand. So, is needle exchange or the use of needles something that happens in prison?
W: Needle exchange is something that some don’t even see as being a problem. But yes, they exchange needles in there. The needles are not exactly clean or clean or all. I mean, they can’t clean the needles or sterilize them; I mean there is nowhere for people to exactly sterilize them or things for them to use. People just be thinking about ways to get high, that’s the only thing on their minds, ya know?
J: Yes, that’s understandable. Are there a high percentage of men in the prison that have HIV or AIDS?
W: Well considering few of them disclosed their business with us, some of us just found out on our own honestly; but yes, a lot of them are infected with the disease. I don’t think they really know how to handle what they have, and the prison system doesn’t really offer that much medical attention or anything. I mean its some basic get it and go type of thing, ya know. I don’t even know if they got anything that really helps them, ya know. I mean I have never been infected, so I don’t know the proper medication that is supposed to be taken.
J: Well do you think considering the type of environment that you were around before you became incarcerated, like the African American community, do you think that you were will informed about HIV/AIDS and the possible risks?
W: Honestly, nah. I mean, I knew it was out there, but I didn’t know what the disease really was and the affects it can have. I mean I don’t really know all that much now. I just know its out there.
J: Well it is advanced at this stage of life. I think you should go to the doctor and get informed. It is something that can affect you now in life too. But we thank you for participating in this interview. It gives us a firsthand look in the prison system honestly.
Lyrics from Kanye West song; Heard 'Em Say
"And I know that the government administer AIDS
So I guess we just pray like the minister say"
Kanye West expresses a common theory that the Government developed AIDS to attack the Black Community.
Timothy DuWhite takes the traditional thinking that the government is responsible for the HIV/AIDS disparity in the black community and puts it into more rational and contemporary terms, quoting a book from Adam Geary and his devices of Biological and Materialistic Analysis, shifting the involvement of the white community towards racism and poverty instead of flat out biological warfare.
This image, by artist Diana Furukawa can be interpreted to display the constrictions that white people put on the black community through HIV and AIDS.