As a young, Black man in America, I look out and (realize) that our community is the most affected by HIV.

You have to believe in yourself and you have to take risks. You know how people say 30 is new 20 and 40 is new 30? Well I think essentially what that's telling us is there are so many opportunities out there, you don't have to rush into something.

As a young, Black man in America, I look out and (realize) that our community is the most affected by HIV.

If you have HIV, I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of. Get treatment and don't think that you're out of options or resources because you're not.

We [African-Americans] are nearly half of all of the new cases of HIV every year, but we only represent 13 percent of the [U.S.] population. So, this is something that's literally bombarding our community, non-stop. We're such a small part of the nation [and] those numbers are alarming. We're putting ourselves in danger, we don't talk about getting tested and we don't talk about knowing [your status].

I try to be as realistic as possible.

We think that if we get tested, that means you have to have HIV. Or we think that just by knowing someone with HIV, we're going to get HIV or because he's gay or she's a lesbian or whatever. This false information has been put out there and it's created this stigma that stops us from going to find out if we're infected. The truth is it doesn't matter who you are, if you're having sex, you need to be getting tested, plain and simple.