Sheryl Lee Ralph to perform for AIDS/HIV awareness
When Letecha Dixon shakes your hand in Schine Student Center, you may be in for a surprise.
As part of the Black Communications Society’s AIDS Awareness Week, members of the student group, including Dixon, plan on dipping their hands in red paint and shaking other people’s hands as they pass. To finish up the week, the society will host Sheryl Lee Ralph, whose one-woman show ‘Sometimes I Cry’ presents the stories of women affected by HIV/AIDS.
‘As easy as it is to put red paint on your hand, that’s how easy it is to gets HIV/AIDS. It’s meant to get people talking about (HIV/AIDS),’ said Dixon, the public relations director for the Black Communications Society and a sophomore public relations major.
‘Sometimes I Cry,’ co-sponsored by Sex S.Y.M.B.A.L.S., will take place at Schine’s Goldstein Auditorium on Wednesday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 or $3 with SUID.
Ralph is well known for her roles as Brandy’s stepmother on the television show ‘Moesha,’ as Rita Watson’s (Lauryn Hill) mother in ‘Sister Act II’ and as Deena Jones in the Broadway musical ‘Dreamgirls.’
Ralph is the founding director of the DIVA (Divinely Inspired Victoriously Anointed) Foundation, which she created in memory of the many friends she has lost to HIV/AIDS. She was also awarded the National HIV/AIDS Partnership’s first Red Ribbon Leadership Award for leadership and commitment to HIV/AIDS activism.
‘She offers something very different,’ said Shavon Greene, vice president of the Black Communications Society and a senior in the school of Arts and Sciences. ‘She’s going to perform, she’s not a boring speaker, and she has a different, in some ways more interesting, way to relay the message about AIDS.’
‘Her performance is a great addition to our AIDS awareness week, it can reach out to so many groups on campus,’ said Greene. ‘She’s an HIV activist and this is something you can’t find on the Web, so it’s going to be a completely new experience.’
Currently, AIDS and HIV are most prevalent in the black and Hispanic communities, according to the Centers for Disease Control. One in 1500 college students are HIV positive or have AIDS, while black people made up 45% of new HIV/AIDS cases and 46% of those living with AIDS in 2006, according to the CDC.
Black Communications Society also held an AIDS Talk with Marvelyn Brown and Terrance Dean on Friday and promoted Sex S.Y.M.B.A.L.S’ free HIV testing in Schine this past Sunday. The Black Communications Society is a pre-professional student organization at Syracuse University for students of color to discuss issues within the media.
Ralph’s performance is meant to take a more artistic approach to AIDS Awareness. The one-woman show is meant to motivate people to know their HIV status and the status of their partners.
‘I’ll definitely go,’ said Peter Elliot, a freshman economics major. ‘What’s better than enlightenment about health risks on a Friday night, and by a famous spokeswoman at that?’
Published on April 13, 2009 at 12:00 pm
