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Narration 1:
Maria Davis is in a hurry. The Queen of the open-mic showcase dashes to the entrance of The City, a club in lower Manhattan. She thanks the bouncer for parking her SUV on her way into the club.
SOUND: Thank you, Tim.
It's after 9 p.m. Her Monday Night Madness showcase begins in less than an hour.
SOUND: club music
Many of the people standing in line seem to recognize Davis from her 20 years of being a music promoter. &Rappers Jay-Z, Fifty Cent and Missy Elliot performed in her weekly showcases before they were stars. She even recorded an interlude with her signature gravely voice on Jay Z's 1996 debut album, Reasonable Doubt.
SOUND: Interlude
Davis recorded the song around the same time she was diagnosed with the HIV-virus. She has worked for the past 10 years at merging her career in the music industry with her passion for blunt talk about HIV and AIDS.
Davis is both motherly and hip at age 45. She talks about sex and HIV-AIDS in between introducing some of the best, up-and-coming artists on stage. Davis also invites the more than 100 audience members to contribute to her red collection box. The money facilitates forums like this one where Davis can talk to an audience.
AX1: DAVIS: All it takes is one time baby and you got it. It doesn't matter what kind of money you have, the jewellery on your arms // It doesn't care that you have a master's or a bachelor's. It doesn't care about any of that. HIV wants you and all you have to do is make that one mistake.
Narration 2:
Twenty-two year old Tayesha Jackson looks up at Davis from the crowded dance floor. Jackson says she came to Monday Night Madness for the first time tonight to enjoy the fresh music with her friends. But she welcomes Davis' message. Jackson says she understands what she is saying.
AX2: JACKSON: I feel like that whoever is sexually active is open to getting that disease//Me and my friends we always talk about it because we all are having sex.
Narration 3:
A number of black men just tell Davis to get on with the show. They are not as receptive as women in the predominantly black audience.
Melvin Koonce is the guitar player for the band that plays the accompaniment every Monday night. He says the black men should listen to Davis for their own benefit.
AX3: KOONCE: Her message is basically to educate you, to stop the virus from spreading / / Don't look at a pretty face and go 'Ah, that looks good' because you never know. That could be the one.
Narration 4:
Davis' outreach is not relegated to once a week. The Harlem-based activist organizes hospital concerts for patients with AIDS. Little Shawn is the drummer for the band at Monday Night Madness.
AX4: LITTLE SHAWN: People know Maria Davis and what she's done for a lot of people. You know, she does the BET AIDS Foundation, you know, Magic Johnson, 125th Harlem everybody knows her 'cause she's trying to teach the young people in the black community about HIV and that's wonderful.
Narration 5:
SOUND: buffet line
People who work with Davis are also open about HIV and AIDS. Didi and Samantha, who declined to give their last names, talk freely about their HIV-positive status with club-goers. Both of them serve the soul food buffet that Davis prepares on the weekend to raise funds.
Samantha was diagnosed more than 10 years ago at the age of 24. She soon had to learn how to speak bluntly about sex.
AX5: SAMANTHA: What happens is when I learnt how to do my outreach and stuff, I had to do one on one, sexual encounters, telling people how to put it on, how not to put it on. You learn that.
Narration 6:
Samantha knows firsthand the hypocrisy that the discussion of sex raises. The activist says she can't even get her boyfriend to wear a condom with her. He's HIV-negative so far although they've been having sex together for six years. She says women have a much greater risk of HIV infection than men because of differences in genitalia.
That's why she focuses a lot of her outreach on black women. She says women are still uncomfortable speaking candidly about their sex lives and condom use.
AX6: SAMANTHA: When people are in relationships that's a very sensitive subject on its own without having to have everything that's coming to play. What makes you think that a stranger from the street wants to talk to you about personal issues in their bedroom? And people forget that part. // Like I told you, 'OK, we have sex, but we don't have protected sex and you're panicked' // Behind their closed doors I'm probably sure that somebody ain't strapping it on, but they don't want to come out their room and tell you the truth.
Narration 7:FADE TO BLACK:
So black women are the fastest growing demographic with HIV and AIDS in spite of the straight talk. Black women made up 73 percent of new cases among women in 2003. Black men made up 40 percent among men.
A 2004 study by the CDC found that black women say they engage in unprotected sex for several reasons: financial dependence, feelings of invincibility, and alcohol and drug use. Some women in the study also reported a desire to be loved, which may compromise their feelings about condom use if their partners don't want to wear them.
Thirty-one year old Dawn Hardy is also working to combat the increasing trend of HIV-infection. She recently founded the Brooklyn-based group SOS: Saving Our Selves. Hardy says she wants to empower women to get tested and say no to risky sex although she does not have HIV-AIDS herself.
AX7: HARDY: SOS: Saving Our Selves is about being accountable for one another as sisters. We can all sit at a coffee table and talk about the great sex we had last night and how cute that guy is, but nobody will sit at that table and say, 'Girl, when was the last time you got tested?
Narration 7:
Hardy founded the group with Caroline McGill, the self-published author of "A Dollar Outta Fifteen Cent." McGill's semi-autobiographical novel addresses HIV/AIDS and themes of adultery and jealousy. McGill says it is her response to the recently discussed down low lifestyle where black men who identify themselves as heterosexual have secret sex with men on the side.
McGill says she wrote the book as a form of activism to encourage women to use better judgment in sex. The 29 year old used to be an exotic dancer and prostitute. McGill says she was always painfully aware of the health risks. So, she got out of the business four years ago and remains HIV-negative.
AX8: MCGILL:
For some reason we are not, even a lot of educated sisters with great jobs and stuff, we are not as aware of this AIDS thing as we should be. Because if we were we wouldn't be getting it at the alarming numbers we're getting it.//The bottom line is that I really wanted to awaken my sisters.
Narration 8:
SOUND: MUSIC
Back at The City club, it's after 1a.m. and Monday Night Madness is winding down. The last act is performing an upbeat gospel song. Samantha relaxes after almost four hours of serving food. She is happy to help out Davis. But Samantha battles depression and says she is overwhelmed by how many black people are misinformed about HIV and AIDS.
AX9: SAMANTHA: // People were misinformed // they told me wrong. They told me it was promiscuous. They told me it was drug users. I didn't do any of that. I don't even smoke cigarettes // So that's what's always the misconception and I let people know the only way to find out is to actually get the test yourself and worry about it from there.
Narration 9
For now, Samantha, Davis, Hardy, and McGill are enlisting black women to participate in AIDS Walk New York on May 15. They are planning to raise at least $10,000 for AIDS research.
A 6.2-mile walk will give women a lot of time to talk.
Valencia Grant, Columbia Radio News.