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.