COLUMN ONE : Blacks and AIDS: No Magic Cure : Despite the campaign of basketball superstar Earvin Johnson, heavy intravenous drug use and a plague of denial often keep the message from getting through.

Speaking in turn, the eight teen-age boys admitted their first reaction to Magic Johnson’s infection with the AIDS virus was shock. Suddenly, the world seemed less secure.

“I was, like, no, that can’t happen to Magic,” said Francois. “He’s the Magic man. A superstar. He wouldn’t have HIV or AIDS or nothing. No way.”

Pressed to describe the depths of his feelings about Johnson, however, Francois grew more distant. “That’s him, not me,” said the student at Park Heights Street Academy, a private school for troubled youth in a depressed and dangerous Baltimore neighborhood. “I don’t know the man. I’ve never met him, and he don’t know me. Actually, he’s just another brother I’ve heard of with HIV.”

Just another brother with HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. There are getting to be so many.

And yet the reaction among young blacks remains so much like Francois’. There is fear, but its faithful companion is denial.

Even as basketball superstar Earvin Johnson aims his AIDS-prevention message at young blacks--a hopeful sign to health workers--the plague seems relentless.

Although blacks make up roughly 12% of the U.S. population, they account for nearly 30% of all reported AIDS cases, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Altogether, blacks and other minorities make up 22% of the population, but represent nearly 46% of the AIDS caseload.

Blacks and Latinos account for 73% of all women with AIDS, and 78% of all children, according to the Public Health Service. In New York and New Jersey, AIDS is the leading cause of death among young black women. In New York, it is the leading cause of death among Latino children 1 to 4 years of age, and the second leading cause of death among black children.

In California, blacks account for 12.5% of reported AIDS cases, though they comprise only 7% of the population.

The disease’s devastating impact on minorities is attributable in large part to their disproportionately large representation in the nation’s underclass.

AIDS has struck particularly hard at intravenous drug users, who become infected by sharing needles contaminated by the AIDS virus, and at their sexual partners and children. Many of these victims are poor, homeless or living in the inner city, and their willingness to engage in practices that could protect them from infection may be overridden by the demons of drug dependency or economic necessity. For someone who is down and out and in need of a fix, safe sex and clean needles can be a tall order.

Polls have indicated that the black population as a whole is more concerned about AIDS and more likely to take precautions to avoid contracting it than are whites. Even so, the disproportionate presence of blacks and other minorities in high-risk urban subcultures virtually ensures that they will continue to fall victim to the disease at higher rates.

As the epidemic continues, the chain of infection that began in the inner city may be crossing into the larger heterosexual population outside.

Those who don’t use drugs may have sex with someone who does. Magic Johnson could be “a very public example of what may be going on to a great extent among young black and Hispanic men in inner-city areas who are having unprotected sex in an environment in which there is a high prevalence of HIV infection, much of which is related to IV drug use,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s top AIDS researcher.

“It obviously doesn’t mean you have to be poor and underprivileged to fall into this category. Mr. Johnson is an articulate, intelligent, affluent individual. But somehow he got infected.”

Many AIDS activists and public health officials viewed Johnson’s promise to proselytize on the issue as a godsend for their efforts to educate minorities. Johnson “put a face on AIDS that is black,” said Bishop Carl Bean, founder and chief executive of the Minority AIDS Project in Los Angeles.

“He was not gay, not white, not across town, not a drug user,” Bean said. “He’s married. He’s macho. He is famous. He is wealthy. He is all of those things that make (black) people say: ‘It can’t happen to me.’ It pushed blacks to a wall, in a corner, where they could not find a way out, and they were forced to deal with it.”

Yet AIDS experts are not convinced that his tragedy will lead to a significant, sustained change in the way young blacks and other minorities view the epidemic, or the steps they take to protect themselves from contracting HIV. Some are bracing for a letdown as media interest and public attention abate.

Eric El-Amin, a visiting mental health therapist who was leading a discussion group at the Baltimore academy, said Johnson’s disclosure appears to be little more than “a passing fancy”--even among those who admired him most. “Will Magic Johnson make a difference? The straight-up answer is no.”

Brenda Pridgen, coordinator of AIDS programs for the city of Baltimore, said: “I’m being realistic. If I were to take the other route and say this is a wonderful opportunity and it’s going to make a tremendous impact, I would only be fooling myself.”

Many doubt that Johnson’s message can penetrate the defenses that have frustrated previous efforts to stem the AIDS epidemic’s deadly run through minority communities. Those defenses, they note, are deeply embedded in the cultural and social psyche of blacks and other minorities whose lives already are threatened by unemployment, poverty and homelessness.

Johnson’s message--at first “safe sex,” then escalated to “no sex”--also must compete with a host of other messages directed at blacks. Pumped out in music, movies and MTV, they nearly always undermine AIDS-prevention efforts.

“It’s almost hypocritical,” said Leslie Pitts, a publicist for Set To Run, an independent public relations firm that handles rap, rhythm ‘n’ blues and alternative music directed at predominantly black, inner-city markets. “The music is so sexual. No one is endorsing the use of a condom.”

Prince, the black mega-star whose recent hits include “Get Off” and “Cream,” glides across a video sound stage with his buttocks exposed as he sings about his “scandalous” life style. Another popular group, Color Me Bad, declares “I Want to Sex You Up,” while singer Keith Sweat croons “I Want to Love You Down.”

Against such suggestive imagery, entreaties against drug use and sexual irresponsibility come across like Muzak--always in the background but easy to tune out.

Moreover, said Dr. Mervyn F. Silverman, president of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, “a wall of denial” prevents leaders in minority communities, especially black ministers, from embracing AIDS as a major health concern.

“Blacks have been reluctant to make it their disease because they’ve been to blame for everything else,” said Silverman, referring to stereotypical beliefs that blacks are responsible for more than their share of violent crime, welfare dependency and other social maladies.

While gay organizations have mounted aggressive AIDS education campaigns, there has been no equivalent self-help effort within the black community--largely because many mainstream black organizations and churches have been reluctant to get involved. Transmission of the virus has slowed among gay men, but it continues to increase among minorities.

Drug abuse is little changed from its level when the AIDS epidemic began a decade ago and poses a particularly severe challenge to black AIDS activists. Although AIDS has been spread most commonly through sexual contact, the sharing of contaminated needles by IV drug users has been the disease’s primary route of entry into heterosexual minority communities.

Belinda Rochelle recalls her efforts as a social worker to warn addicts in a Washington, D.C., public housing projects about AIDS.

“It was extremely frustrating to walk up and down streets, and talk to people who did not perceive themselves at risk,” said Rochelle, now program director for AIDS Action Council, a Washington-based lobbying group for community organizations. “They would all say: ‘It’s not going to happen to me.’ One of the guys said he wasn’t at risk because he wasn’t gay. ‘I don’t dip into that thing,’ he said, referring to homosexual behavior.”

Pleas for safe sex are considered ineffective among drug addicts, some of whom engage in prostitution to support their habits and are likely to pass the virus on to unsuspecting sex partners.

Black AIDS activists say the relative silence of black clergy and traditional civil rights organizations remains an obstacle. Many black leaders stubbornly cling to the notion that AIDS only strikes people outside their realm of influence.

Clergy and other leaders in black communities remain reluctant to raise uncomfortable issues that are inextricably bound with AIDS: sex, drugs and homosexuality.

Black clergy often prefer to preach sexual abstinence, arguing that to encourage safe sex simply encourages promiscuity among youths and undermines the moral values they teach.

“We have some ministers who are enlightened and some who are unenlightened,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), one of the few black congressional leaders with a long record of AIDS activism.

Waters recalled a black Los Angeles minister who agreed reluctantly to allow the Minority AIDS Project to conduct a workshop at his church. But the minister insisted: “You may not mention the word ‘sex.’ You may not mention the word ‘condom.’ And, you may not mention the word ‘homosexuality.’ ”

Nevertheless, it was considered a victory. The minister had never allowed AIDS activists into his church before. “This time, at least we got a foot in the door,” Waters said. “Maybe in six months, he’ll let us say the words.”

Maurice Franklin, who runs the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s national AIDS program, said he was “very devastated, doubly devastated” the day Johnson announced he was infected. The religious-based conference is one of the few traditional black-led civil rights organization with an established national AIDS program.

On that same Thursday, Franklin was conducting a training program for black ministers “to sensitize the black church community on how they can be more compassionate and non-judgmental and sensitive to people with AIDS.” Although more than 500 invitations were sent to black clergy nationwide, Franklin said, only three showed up.

“Perhaps this is not an issue the church wants to discuss,” Franklin said. “They don’t want to talk about it and expose it to their congregations. When they do, they bash the victims as deserving of God’s wrath.”

Black elected officials in Congress have shown little leadership on AIDS, said Anita D. Taylor, an official with the National Minority AIDS Council.

“I am banging my head against the wall on this issue,” she said, speaking with rising emotion about her inability to rally the 26 members of the Congressional Black Caucus to spearhead national AIDS awareness.

At a packed congressional hearing last summer designed to increase AIDS awareness in minority communities, she recalled angrily, only two black congressional leaders showed up. “We sent press releases, called the representatives’ offices, spoke with appointment secretaries. There was no confusion, and no one can claim they didn’t know about the meeting. They just didn’t want to attend. It’s unacceptable to me.”

The difficulty of directing effective AIDS prevention messages at black audiences was underscored by an exchange at Walbrook High, an old, red-brick school in another one of Baltimore’s depressed neighborhoods.

“NBC and ABC and all those white companies are going to make money off Magic Johnson,” said one black teen-ager, who declined to give his name. “He’s going to be on the talk shows and the ratings are going to go up.

“He’s just an exploitable commodity. Why should I care?”

Times researcher Ann Rovin in Denver also contributed to this report.