Cynthia's Interests


The world as it unfolds - told from an African American woman's perspective...

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Cliff Kelly - Hostile Interview

When we were told about being interviewed on the Cliff Kelly show, we called Cliff’s producer (Jerry Riles) and told him this wouldn’t be the old run of the mill interview about HIV/AIDS. We informed him that Cliff is not interested in hearing what we have to say because we had already given him information on this subject. Jerry said WVON talks about HIV/AIDS all the time and asked us to fax him some information about us and what we are going to talk about anyway. It became apparent during the interview, that this interview was the brainchild of Jerry Riles. Cliff became unsettled and hostile. His ace (Lloyd Kelly) in the hole called into the show and the interview immediately shifted to the standard HIV spiel. Lloyd is an HIV/AIDS activist in Chicago and has some type of foundation that is geared towards getting all black people in Chicago and I think Illinois to get tested for HIV. As I was trying to make a point about the proteins that are used to determine if someone is HIV +, Lloyd interrupted and said “let me explain to you how this test works”. He said the test is not looking at proteins Cliff; it is looking at antibodies against HIV. From that point onward, Cliff would not let us counter anything Lloyd had to say (right or wrong). He let Lloyd urge the WVON family to get tested and he ended the show by talking about the HIV/AIDS hypothesis and how Nelson Mandela's son died of HIV and how Nelson Mandela told Mbeki this and asked what are you doing because HIV exist. I was wondering when did Mandela go to school for science. At least Mbeki hosted a world HIV/AIDS conference and heard arguments from both camps before making his decision about rejecting or accepting the dogma that is being peddled by the West. Finally, Cliff thanked us for being on the show and hung up without giving us the courtesy to make any final comments like he generally offers to his guests.

The following Tuesday (January 2, 2006), Lloyd called into Cliff's show and told him about a new law that is going into effect that will be doing HIV/AIDS testing on the many black people that are in the jails in Illinois. You should have heard Lloyd and Cliff go on and on about how disappointed they were in those two for setting us back in this fight against HIV/AIDS in the black community. Lloyd even had the nerves to pat Cliff on the back (giving him a high five) for handling us in the interview. He said you really handled those two Cliff. I became slightly annoyed and called into Cliff's show and told him that Lloyd needs to learn about basic science. When Lloyd said let me explain about how the test works and said they are not looking at proteins, they are looking at antibodies to HIV, he should have known that antibodies are proteins. This is far too serious for us to be listening to someone who claims to be our resident expert and yet he doesn’t know anything about basic science, and more importantly, how this test works. This is reprehensible. No wonder as a community, we are being duped on many fronts, we are listening to too many ignorant and unscrupulous people who are willing to sell us down the river as long as they can get a piece of the pie. I guess we will always have those among us who are willing to delivery any type of message to us no matter how absurd as long as they are being paid for those said services and/or lies.

All in all, I should thank Cliff Kelly - because of his show, we had a packed house. One thing about black Chicagoans, many were already suspicious about this whole HIV/AIDS theory and the interview fueled that suspicion even further. The news is spreading like a wildfire. It is interesting to note that everyone we present the science behind HIV, believes the message. People were buzzing all around us at the Kwanzaa celebrations and the news is being passed on. I was happy to be informed that someone presented a video of the science behind HIV/AIDS at one of the events at the many Kwanzaa celebrations in town. We are presenting this information again soon to some prominent people in Chicago. The truth is being wall received.

Side note: Only one person came to Cliff’s defense. This is significant because more people generally tell Cliff when they agree with his position.

posted by Cynthia   Permalink| Comments(3)|

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