Erased by Respectability: The Intersections of AIDS, Race, and Gender in Black America

Abstract:This article explores gender's relationship with white supremacy and respectability politics and the intersectional impact of the three on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Black community from the 1980s to 2000. The demonization of gay white men and erasure of white women from the HIV/AIDS epidemic evidenced that white supremacy does not distribute its privilege equally. Through a juxtaposition of my interview with HIV/AIDS advocate Ruselle Miller-Hill, a formerly incarcerated Black woman living with AIDS, and well-known AIDS activist and survivor Rae Lewis-Thornton, I examine the impact of internal gendered respectability politics in the Black community. The article also examines how these respectability politics painted Black women as the victims of duplicitous bisexual Black men to protect the former's respectability at the expense of their sexual autonomy.