While driving down the highway the other day, I heard a radio advertisement for a week-long television news series on the AIDS epidemic in the black community. I nearly caused an accident when I heard that one of the days of the series was going to be devoted to “Understanding ‘The Down Low’�. I can’t explain to you how angry I was, not only that a series on AIDS in the black community felt the need to focus on this, but also that we continue to lean on this idea as a replacement for real honest conversations.

But alas, let me attempt to explain my irritation.

“The Down Low� is defined as the phenomenon of straight, often married or committed, black men cheating on their wives or girlfriends with other men. With thanks to J.L. King and his book On The Down Low, millions of black women tuned into Oprah with notepads in hand, taking notes and looking for signs that their husband or boyfriend might be cheating on them with men. Suddenly, “The Down Low� has become this huge catch phrase, encouraging black women to be paranoid and homophobic but not mindful of their own safety and health.

“The Down Low� is not new. For goodness sakes, didn’t we all read E. Lynn Harris’ Invisible Life? Even THEN it wasn’t new. When white men do it, we call it being in the closet. When black men do it, they get a catchy new urban phrase. Guess what? In my book it’s called CHEATING.

“The Down Low� allows us to perpetrate the false notion that being black and male is synonymous with being straight. If people weren’t demonized for being anything other than straight, maybe they wouldn’t feel the need to sneak around.

The black community is not a monolith. Contrary to popular belief the black community is no more or less homophobic than any other community, despite the fact that the Right has done an excellent job of presenting us this way, and of exploiting the homophobia in our community (thereby advancing their agendas and alienating us from our potential allies). But the concept of “The Down Low� furthers the existing homophobia in two ways. First, by putting the focus on who men are cheating with, instead of just on the fact that they are cheating. And secondly, by making black women unnecessarily paranoid that black gay and bisexual men are lurking around corners like predators ready to pounce on their husbands.

“The Down Low� makes Black women into witless victims, and encourages us to spend our time trying to determine whether our husband or boyfriend is making too much eye contact with his male friends, instead of taking care of ourselves, and using some basic common sense. I hate to admit how many black women I know that have taken to reading popular garbage promising to show them all the “signs� that their significant other is “on the down low.� Why not spend the time examining the signs that your relationship needs work and so does your self-esteem?

Recall the Vice Presidential debates, where neither Vice President Cheney, nor Senator Edwards had any idea about the impact of AIDS in the black community. The problem is not going away any time soon, (especially if we’re relying on those yahoos to fix it), and our continual focus on “The Down Low� obscures the actual meaningful conversations we should be having.

As black women we should be talking about not basing our senses of self-esteem and self-worth on other people. We should be talking about sexuality and identity. We should be talking about being accepting of all people, LGBTQ, omni-, pan-, and polysexual, green, purple, and orange. We should stop believing that it’s better to find a person who treats us like dirt, than to be alone. We should be talking about communicating with our partners, and entering into relationships of mutual trust and respect. We should be talking about sex education, contraception, and learning to love ourselves first. We should be talking about honesty, and personal responsibility.

A catchy urban phrase did not bring AIDS into our communities and getting rid of the phrase won’t take it away. But at least then we can address the real issues with some self-respect.

It’s impossible to think about your age, and not think about what you have and haven’t accomplished. I always think that at age 23 I should have accomplished at least 22 fabulous things, (allowing myself to be unfabulous solely so that I could learn to crawl.) I feel like I'm behind schedule. I remember when I was a freshman in college and bell hooks (huge black feminist author woman) became my Shero, and all I kept thinking about was how she had published her first book at age 19, and how I had better hurry up! I fundraised, and begged, and persuaded my way to raising enough money to bring her to speak at my school. I had the privilege of introducing her speech, and she commented that that was the best introduction she had ever gotten. I was beaming! You have to understand how much I idolized this woman!

And then came the blow.

She said something that was terribly complimentary about me, but then put me on blast in front of about 250-300 people because I wasn't "happy to be nappy." So what did I do? I just laughed and took it like a woman. It was a pretty cold thing to do, but I was waaay too deep in my Shero worship to acknowledge how much it bothered me.

Me and a few of my co-workers who had helped raise funds went to dinner with her after her speech. I remember being so excited and yet so nervous about what I would say to her. On some level, I wanted her to see how great a black feminist warrior I was, and what wonderful things I was doing, and how inspired I was by her writing, and at the same time I didn't want to say or do anything that she would disagree with-- I mean she had already chided me about my relaxed hair. I was just too absorbed in what I had built this woman up to be, to even be myself. It wouldn't have mattered anyway.

At dinner she seemed like it was a task to talk to the students at the table. And the brief moment of conversation that she had with me centered around whether or not there was a man in my life.

I felt so let down! Like everything I'd thought the movement was was false. Here I was with this black feminist icon, whose writing had inspired and educated so many people, but who in person had insulted and diminished a budding young mind, in exactly the way that her writings taught people not to do.

Now, I’m not saying that bell hooks doesn’t have amazing views to give to the world. She does.

But Shero worship is a dangerous thing. Because no matter how amazing someone seems in writing, or how charismatic a speech they give, or how good a game they talk, in the end everybody is just an ordinary old human being-- with their own fears and insecurities, judgments and mistakes. When you put someone up on that kind of a pedestal, where they become an icon, and not a whole person, it's only a matter of time before it comes crashing down. If you're lucky, you realize sooner rather than later that the only thing that separates you from your Shero is you.

People become our Sheroes because they inspire us, because some segment of the world has recognized their talents as special and unique. And ultimately, we worship them because we feel that they are something that we can’t be. The truth is, there’s nothing our Sheroes are doing that we couldn’t do, with a little creativity, ambition, perseverance and elbow grease.

So, with my creativity, ambition, perseverance, and elbow grease in hand, I’m off to accomplish 21 more fabulous things.