Gettin’ some AIDS

Does anyone else find it ironic that Cassie's "Me & U" is reaching the peak of its popularity at a time when some pretty nasty statistics are coming out with regard to AIDS in the black community, especially among black women?

In the past decade, AIDS has become an increasingly black and increasingly female disease. I'm sure we've all heard the grim statistics before, but it bears repeating: Black women are 23 times more likely to have AIDS than white women (yikes!), and AIDS is the leading cause of death for black women between the ages of 25 and 34.

NAACP President Julian Bond spoke on the issue at the international AIDS summit this past Monday and went so far as to call AIDS a black disease.

"The story of AIDS in America is mostly one of a failure to lead and nowhere is this truer than in our black communities," said Bond, chairman of the NAACP. "We have led successful responses to many other challenges in the past. Now is the time for us to face the fact that AIDS has become a black disease."

Given what we know about AIDS and its effect on the black community, I can't help but wonder the degree to which all of this nasty R&B music is playing a part. As I've mentioned before on this site, I won't be certain that Cassie is part-black until I actually meet the girl's father and have a few words with him, but there's no doubt that her audience is made up of young black girls. Who else would be watching 106 & Park?

As I mentioned in another post on this site, "Me & U" is almost certainly about giving a man oral sex. Furthermore, I have it on good confidence that Cassie read the post on my own site, in which I break down in graphic detail how the song's lyrics relate to swallowing a man's unit, to which she is said to have responded by "squealing in disapproval." Later, she would deny these claims in a post on her own blog.

Yo, some things need to be cleared up right now. First off I’d like to say that the media is absolutely ruthless and will do ANTHING to tear people down. This week particularily has been the worst with media for me. They’ve released statements that I never said about the intentions of my first single ‘Me & U.’ I never said that the song is about oral sex. Take it as you wish, I NEVER SAID THAT, EVER!

Riiight.

Here's the thing: It's not like she wrote the song anyway. Who is she to say what the song's actually about? If the kind of d-bags who post here can figure out that the song is about shining a knob, then I think you'd have to admit that that's what the song is about. More importantly, I think you'd have to assume that kids, who are blowing each other as if it's going out of style these days, are going to realize what the song's about.

Not only are songs like "Me & U," which are targeted towards young people, part of a culture that leads a lot of young kids (in many cases, as young as 11, 12, and 13 years old) to make a lot of bad choices, but I think Cassie's utter denial of a relationship between her music and these issues is endemic of the kind of denial that leads so many people to think that they aren't susceptible to HIV and AIDS.

Meanwhile, the grim statistics obviously prove otherwise, and I think that Cassie and other artists such as herself should be held accountable for the role they're playing in this epidemic.