Sometimes celebrity has its perks. There's fly gear and fast times. Worldwide premiers and whirlwind travel. Crucial contacts and Krug Rose'. Fairly wild days and even wilder nights. There's the riches. And the power. And the spoils.
Around every corner – it seems – opportunity, occasion, and exposure constantly lie in wait. Yet with great power comes even greater responsibility. Which means sometimes celebrity can get complicated.
Complicated. Arcane. Perplexed. Just like real life.
As the world turns, nobody really aspires to be a drug dealer. Mostly its circumstance and choice that put us in the place where we stand. So its initially unnerving to hear that Alicia Keys – the multi-platinum, Grammy-award winning, pianist, singer, songwriter, and now actress – is not only an advocate for dealing drugs, but is something of a drug kingpin (I guess she'd be a 'queen' pin), herself.
Alicia Keys a candy girl?? Say it ain't so.
But there she is all over the internet insisting that her fans and peers push weight. She's even helping promote a website (www.becomeadrugdealer.com) that gives a virtual blueprint on the basics of drug distribution including 'cartels', 'trafficking,' and 'recruitment'.
Perhaps all those Smokin Aces have indeed finally gone to her head?
But this is Alicia Keys we're talking about. Hell's Kitchen's girl gone good. So of course it's not all that it seems. And upon closer inspection, you'll soon understand why.
AIDS is everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
Worldwide it kills almost 8,000 people every twenty-four hours. It is an as yet incurable virus that has no consideration for race, class, creed, color, gender, or sexual orientation. It cares not where you live, where you're from, or what you do. AIDS is more impactful than any civil or humanitarian rights legislation. AIDS is as equal opportunity as it gets. And most of the people who have it don't even know it.
AIDS – actually the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that causes AIDS – can only be transmitted from human to human by:
(1) Sex – anal, vaginal, or oral
(2) Blood transfusion
(3) Sharing of contaminated needles
(4) Mother to infant, during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding
And while information like this is all well and good for industrialized, Western countries like the United States (where an estimated 43,000 people were newly infected with the disease in 2006); in less wealthy countries like Africa, Asia, or some parts of the Caribbean these little factoids are about as irrelevant as Brittney Spears’ latest hairstyle.
For example, AIDS/HIV transmission from parent to child is substantially preventable. But it is much easier to, say, not feed your baby HIV-infected breast milk when there's a WIC office or a Wal-Mart near by. Let's get real; when your hood is a camp on the westside of the Kalahari, that whole 'getting proper nutrition' thing is nothing more than a mess of complicated hubbub. There are no 7-11's in most underdeveloped countries. There are no Planned Parenthood's passing out free prophylactics. Thus, over 90% of all HIV/AIDS infected people worldwide live in impoverished / developing countries. And Africa -- specifically sub-Saharan Africa – has it worst of all. That’s because approximately 63% of people living with AIDS worldwide are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa (defined as countries on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert that are not considered a part of North Africa). Over two million of them are children. Further, there are nearly 12 million ‘AIDS Orphans’ (that is, children who’s parents have died due to AIDS) living there as well.
This cannot be what Darwin intended when he theorized on ‘survival of the fittest’. With regards to AIDS as a whole, and AIDS in Africa specifically, something unequivocally has got to give.
With a donation of about $30 a month, lifesaving antiretroviral medications are distributed to children in sub-Saharan Africa via the efforts of the Brooklyn-based organization Keep A Child Alive – of which Alicia has recently been named Ambassador (www.keepachildalive.org). Antiretrovirals – or ARVs -- are considered the main type of treatment for HIV and AIDS. And while they are not a cure for HIV or AIDS, they can delay the illness in people for many, many years. In sub-Saharan Africa, a measly 100,000 people – just 2 percent – receive ARV medications, even though ARVs have “transformed AIDS from a virtual death sentence to a … potentially manageable disease.” And even though antiretrovirals have “virtually eliminated” HIV transmissions between mother and child and have been credited with lowering the AIDS death rate by as much as 80%.
And here’s that ‘ah-ha’ moment.
This is why Alicia Keys wants you to become a drug dealer. Not to dignify illegal drugs, but to save the life of a child. She’s found her cross to bear and while it’s a formidable one to be sure, perhaps in this giving back we may all achieve the consummate satisfaction that only doing good works can bring.
And for a moment at least, life (our life, the child’s life, Alicia’s life) may become just a tad less complicated.
And that, absolutely, could be the best perk of all.
- - - - - - -
Other ways to make your life less complicated:
• Find out your status. Go to www.hivtest.org to find locations in your area that provide free testing.
• Make a one-time donation. To any AIDS related organization of your choosing.
• Download a copy of Alicia and Bono’s cover of Peter Gabriel’s and Kate Bush’s “Don’t Give Up”. All proceeds go to “Keep A Child Alive”. (www.itunes.com)
• Keep yourself informed. Any of the sites listed here are good places to start.
UNAIDS.ORG AVERT.ORG CDC.GOV HIVTEST.ORGKEEP A CHILD ALIVE. ORG BECOME A DRUG DEALER. COMAs my grandma likes to say, ‘Holla @ ya girl’:
Sasha@OfficialBloKRecords.com
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