Going into 2011, the statistical landscape of blacks contracting AIDS is expected to only get worse, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Every nine-and-a-half minutes, a person in the United States becomes infected with HIV and the African-American community accounts for nearly half of those infected. While blacks represent approximately 12% of the U.S. population, they account for 46% (506,000) of the 1.1 million people living with HIV in the United States, as well as 45% (25,335) of the 56,300 new infections every year. Approximately one in 16 black men will be diagnosed with HIV, as will one in 30 black women. The rate of new HIV infections for African-American men is about six times as high as that of white men, nearly three times that of Hispanic men, and more than twice that of African-American women. The HIV incidence rate for black women is nearly 15 times as high as that of white women, and nearly four times that of Hispanic women. AIDS is the third leading cause of death among black women aged 25 to 34 and black men aged 35 to 44 while 38% of blacks aged 13 to 29 account for nearly 25,000 infections estimated to occur on an annual basis. “We need to get off the mindset that AIDS is a gay disease. It is 2010 and we still believe that it is a gay disease. We need to stop blaming each other and learn to work together to stop the spread of AIDS, because AIDS has hit the African American community harder than any other community,” said Hydeia Broadbent, 26, who was born HIV positive. Broadbent contracted the immune system-destroying disease from her drug addicted biological mother. Marvelyn Brown, who lives in New York City, contracted HIV at the age of 19 from an ex-boyfriend. Before that she only considered it a “White gay man's disease.”