Some New Dying Trick: African American Youths "Choosing" HIV/AIDS

Abstract

The haunting voices of six African American young people family members of socioeconomically marginalized persons with HIV/AIDS, dominate this vulnerable ethnography. Initially enrolled as auxiliary respondents in a longitudinal research project centered on HIV/AIDS in inner-city Detroit, they joined family members as primary respondents when they seroconverted after deliberately seeking HIV exposure. Analysis integrates these behaviors with the growing feelings of futility and hopelessness born of the erosive despair of inner-city life that turns such phenomena as violence, gang membership, and crime inward, in a self-destructive pattern of symbolic violence that is likely to extract severe social consequences. Each youth tells his or her story from within the context of marginalization, insensitive social policies, and demanding caretaking responsibilities.