Everybody Needs A Little Controversey

I thought I would post about how I'm feeling watching this TV show. I have no idea what it's called, but it is on TBS right now. It is with a black family and the mom does bloodwork for a doctor's office. She just found out that her son was dating a girl who had come into the clinic and tested positive for HIV. The mom confronts this girl, Karen, about not informing her son, Calvin that she was HIV positive before they started dating. Karen's argument was that they had only been on one date and she planned to tell him if things got more serious. In the middle of an awkward silence, Calvin walked in. He asked what was going on and the mother said "you tell him" to Karen. She ended up telling him and a huge verbal fight broke out. He told her she should have let him know and he should have the right to choose whether he wants to date someone with HIV or not. It was a very high emotional segment of the show.

There was a disclaimer after the show about health testing.

The reason I am posting this is because I'm not sure how I feel about it. I really think that there are some ways this might connect into our class on issues of diversity. Although the TV show isn't "literature" per se, it is a form of media--like we talked about in class today. I wonder, though, what their goal was with this in the TV show. It seems to me that it is a good way to combat the stereotype that HIV is primarily a disease transmitted in homosexual relations. I think, but am not positive that there is a high rate of HIV/AIDS in the black population. Will someone correct me if I'm wrong? Anyway, I wanted to post thing because I felt like it was a decent connection to the things that we were talking about and may come across eventually in our class discussions. I think it was really important that they included the disclaimer at the end of the episode, as this is a growing disease in many cultures.