Trailer for The Other City.

Once again, I am participating in AIDS Walk Washington and, once again, I’m asking you to donate a few dollars to this cause.  This 5k run and walk benefits Whitman Walker Clinic, a non-profit organization that offers medical and dental care, addiction counseling, free HIV/AIDS tests, legal services, AIDS education, and other services to DC-residents living with HIV/AIDS.

I try to keep my politics reasonably removed from this blog but the AIDS epidemic in DC is something that is terrible at best and unconscionable at worst.  To put the District’s AIDS issues in perspective, consider that:

• DC has a higher rate of HIV infection than most sub-Saharan African nations.
• DC has the highest rate of new AIDS cases per 100,000 people in the United States — a rate that is 12 times the national average.
• In DC, the greatest increase in AIDS cases is occurring among people of color, women, injection drug users and through heterosexual contact.
• In DC, African-Americans account for eight out of every 10 cases of AIDS.
• More than 15,000 people in the Washington metropolitan area live with AIDS. Tens of thousands more people are estimated to be infected with HIV.

If you can spare a few dollars, please take a moment to sponsor me.  It’s a really, really good cause that is in very, very high demand in DC.  The clip above is for the documentary The Other City, not yet available on DVD, that just begins to touch on how complex and profoundly serious a situation the District is in.