Derrick Bell Authors Guest Blog on Race and HIV in the United States

CHLP is honored to host Derrick Bell, renowned legal scholar and prominent figure in the study of critical race theory, as a guest blog author. Professor Bell, who teaches constitutional law at New York University School of Law, has authored numerous treatises on race and the law, including: Race, Racism, and American Law (6th ed. 2008); And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice (1992); and Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (1992). He brings his sharp insight to the topic of HIV and racial justice in the United States, authoring a blog on the frightening disparities in infection rates between African Americans and white Americans. Professor Bell’s blog illuminates the striking results of a recently released study by the Black AIDS Institute demonstrating that HIV rates are spiking among African Americans such that, if the African American population constituted its own country, it would receive billions under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which provides funding to countries abroad who have been devastated by HIV/AIDS. However, because they live in the United States, no such assistance is forthcoming, and the health care of African Americans continues to be ignored as they bear the brunt of the HIV epidemic in the United States.