(CNN)DaBaby is trying to make amends following disparaging comments he made about gay men and HIV during a performance at a Miami music festival last month.

The rapper, whose real name is Jonathan Kirk, met with Black leaders from nine HIV organizations across on Tuesday, according to a joint press release from the groups.

Some of the organizations included the Black AIDS Institute, GLAAD, National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC), and The Normal Anomaly Initiative.

“During our meeting, DaBaby was genuinely engaged, apologized for the inaccurate and hurtful comments he made about people living with HIV, and received our personal stories and the truth about HIV and its impact on Black and LGBTQ communities with deep respect,” the organizations stated in a joint statement. “We appreciate that he openly and eagerly participated in this forum of Black people living with HIV, which provided him an opportunity to learn and to receive accurate information.”

The meeting follows an open letter from the groups to DaBaby following his offensive comments at the Rolling Loud music festival in Miami, which he eventually apologized for after he was condemned by other musicians like Elton John, Madonna, Questlove and Dua Lipa.

“I want to apologize to the LGBTQ+ community for the hurtful and triggering comments I made,” he wrote on his Instagram page. “Again, I apologize for my misinformed comments about HIV/AIDS and I know education on this is important.”

DaBaby isn’t done making things right.

Following the harmful and controversial comments he made about HIV and AIDS at his recent performance at Miami’s Rolling Loud music festival in late July, the 29-year-old rapper has lost out on many paid opportunities and performances, taking to social media to offer an apology. But many, especially in the community, don’t see it as enough.

With that in mind, eleven HIV organizations, including Arianna’s Center, the Black AIDS Institute, GLAAD, The Normal Anomaly Initiative, Prevention Access Campaign, Relationship Unleashed, and leaders from the Gilead COMPASS Initiative including Southern AIDS Coalition, Emory University, the University of Houston, and Wake Forest University have signed and released an open letter to the rapper asking him to meet with them so he can learn more about the disease and help amplify correct information about living with it.

“We heard your inaccurate and harmful comments at Rolling Loud and have read your Instagram apology. However, at a time when HIV continues to disproportionately impact Black Americans and queer and transgender people of color, a dialogue is critical,” the letter reads. “We must address the miseducation about HIV, expressed in your comments, and the impact it has on various communities.”

The orgs also offer specific steps he can take to start making up for the comments. “We believe that you now have an opportunity to not just move past this unfortunate incident, but to use your platform and celebrity to heal not harm,” it reads.

“We believe that anyone can be an HIV advocate by amplifying: how there is medication (PrEP) that can prevent people from getting HIV with one pill a day, how routine treatment stops the virus from being passed on by people living with the HIV, how people receiving HIV care can survive and thrive while living with it, and how open and empathetic conversations eliminate stigma.”

“You can be a powerful and influential voice, especially across your home base in the South, where the Black community’s needs are notoriously under-represented across every public spectrum,” the letter continues. “We encourage you to share this information with your fans and followers, and become an agent of truth and change.”

Raniyah Copeland, the president and CEO of the Black AIDS Institute said that DaBaby’s comments specifically hit the Black community harder than others.

“DaBaby’s words reflect the mindset of many Black folks,” she said. “Whether it’s stigmatizing people who are gay, trans, and/or living with HIV, or it’s a deeply-rooted misogynoir, we can end HIV within our lifetime only if we work past ignorance that holds up systems of anti-Blackness that hurt and divide us.”

“It’s why critical conversations about shaming and oppressing our own people must be had in the whole of Black communities,” she continued. “Having Black-led HIV organizations, particularly from the south, join this effort underscores the need for widespread Black leadership in brokering conversations that turn the misinformed into messengers of truth. We must ensure we ourselves are creating a world where all Black lives are afforded the humanity we deserve.”

To read the letter in its entirety, head over to GLAAD’s website.

On this week’s episode of Space Case, it’s the final installment of our month long PRIDECAST: Podcasting with Pride! series. We conclude PRIDECAST with a roundtable of queer artists, activists, and community workers here in Texas to talk about what Pride means to them, hopes for the community going forward, the pitfalls of focusing queer trauma over queer humanity, AND we play a round of QUEER TRIVIA. Our panelists: Joelle Bayaa-Uzuri and Jordan Edwards from THE NORMAL ANOMALY INITIATIVE (Houston, Texas) – The Normal Anomaly Initiative centers Black queer+ persons to overcome barriers, end stigma, and problematic narratives to actualize a new normal. STOO (Houston, Texas) – a multi-disciplinary artist, activist, superstar, AND one of the founders of the queer artist showcase and collective ABUNDANTLY QUEER. They were most recently nominated for 2021’s Non-Binary Grand Marshall for PRIDE HOUSTON and were seen onstage in GODSPELL at the DeLuxe Theater. Gregory Josephe Graye (San Marcos/Austin, Texas) – Greg is a male drag performer, figure model, community activist, and podcaster who loves to tell the stories of his community. You can stream THE GREGGO SHOW anywhere you get your podcasts.

Follow our guests!

Joelle Bayaa-Uzuri and Jordan Edwards from THE NORMAL ANOMALY INITIATIVE: https://www.normalanomaly.org/
@thenormalanomaly

STOO: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1KBLgfciqqYNVgApP6OGBr?si=FmCMWCz0RUCrjYaxIgjgoQ&dl_branch=1
@stooizm

Gregory Josephe Graye: http://greggoshowpod.com/
https://linktr.ee/GregGoneWild
@greggoshowpod
@greggonewild

The following is a guest post by Ian L. Haddock, the executive director of The Normal Anomaly Initiative. The Normal Anomaly Initiative is a grantee of AIDS United under the Positive Organizing Project Year Six and Fund for Resilience, Equity and Engagement. For more information about how you can help #StopHIVTogether, click here.

I’m taking my second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine later this week to commemorate National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. It’s considerably an eccentric way to celebrate, but during this unprecedented year, it makes the most sense to me. The decision to participate in being vaccinated so early in the rollout was an easy one for me; I believe the vaccine is the most promising way for me to get back to some sense of normalcy.

For many Black people, though, it is not an easy decision to take this vaccine. In fact, for many of my community, it feels like a life-or-death situation.

For Black people, taking a vaccine is a reminder of what has happened to us over and over in our history and the present. In this cyclical story that covers decades of medical mistrust, you can change the inputs and outputs, but the outcome will more often than not be that Black people seem to be disproportionately negatively affected. For instance, I live in Texas: one of the most populous states with the largest medical center in the world and the unfortunate reality of the second highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country. Yet, at the beginning of the rollout of the vaccine there were few sites located where Black and Brown people live even though their risk is higher for hospitalization and death while resources and mobility is limited.

NBHAAD is yet another reminder of these disproportionate effects. Although Black people only account for about 13% of the United States population, we account for almost 42% of new HIV infections. Here in Texas, Black womxn are 14.8 times more likely than White womxn and Black mxn are 4.3 times more likely than White mxn to receive an HIV diagnosis. Like the other social movements and pandemics of today, we have to look at race when it comes to HIV.

Both COVID-19 and HIV are a racial justice issue. This is not to say that Black people are the only one’s contracting diseases; it is to say that Black people are dying disproportionately and aren’t receiving critical care—like vaccines and viral suppression—in a proportionate rate. For many of our community, it is not available. For others, it is because there has been little clarity and meaningful engagement on the issues that we present as it relates to our medical care.

I know the medical community can do better with how it engages and empowers Black people because I am a product of what happens when you encourage a person to have power in their actions. Before I had language, HIV activists took my hand and taught me the bravery of having autonomy over myself. In 2015, I remember a group of people living with HIV teaching me to advocate for getting on PrEP even when my doctor was cautious to recommend it; they reminded me of having to take their HIV medication simply in hopes — at the time of their diagnosis — that it would prolong their life. It was their belief in me that has brought me to be confident in doing what must be done for me to feel safe and protected and for bringing that passion to my community. This is what it will take for people to feel empowered: the cultivation of advocates that are dismantling the structure while simultaneously building up a community response that encourages people to ask questions, get answers and develop confidence in their decision-making.

This is why we at The Normal Anomaly Initiative have created the Black, Queer+ Center for Liberation. We are creating a community of power that embraces the idea that we can do what we must for each other, cultivate meaningful engagement and still hold the structure accountable. For instance, our Positive Organizing, Wellness and Resilience (POWR) program was created for and by persons living with HIV to create brave spaces both digitally and in-person that contribute to holistic wellness, community and advocacy. Also, we are offering employment counseling and placement services through our partnership with Life Mission Project Network, a community burial assistance fund in collaboration with Impulse Group Houston along with mobile and at-home HIV testing. These programs are an example of how we are innovating to meet the call of our community and to keep with our slogan: “Eliminate Barriers to Create New Norms.”

One day — hopefully in the next year — we can see the end of the dark moment that we have lived in because of COVID-19. I know that whenever we get there, it’ll be because of how we mobilized, engaged and used our voices. So, this week, in acknowledgment of all the things that I have learned in activism centering HIV, in celebration of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and faith that activism is what will get us to the end of both of these pandemics, I take my second dose of the COVID vaccine.