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.

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

Knowing your HIV status is such an easy thing to do, but again, we've created this stigma around even going to get tested.

Once I got my business degree I realized I didn't want to do business anymore. My passion started to kick in and say, "Are you really sure this is what you want to do with the rest of your life? Are you 100% positive?"

I try to be as realistic as possible.

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].

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.