liberty wrote:One example is it is racist to point out that blacks have an AIDS rate way of proportion to their population. They are not concerned with the fact this situation exist but that it was mentioned. It is a mind set I can’t understand.
You could not possibly have picked a stupider example, because black people are CONSTANTLY drawing attention to the disproportionate effect of the AIDS epidemic on them. Every single document I have ever read that gives even a fleeting nod to epidemiology makes reference to it. Since I suspect you came down with a case of foot-in-mouth disease that made you latch on to this specifically, I am guessing that it went well beyond "pointing out" this highly publicized fact, that you decided to talk out of your ass about why you believe the difference exists, you interpreted the difference as some sort of judgment about values or morality or responsibility or whatever, and whomever you were talking to took your head off.
There are a couple of things that help explain it. One is poverty. There was a study published by the
CDC, that looked at infection rates of heterosexuals living in poverty areas (an area where greater than 20% of the residents lived below the poverty line). They found an HIV prevalence of 2.1%, over 20 times greater than the overall heterosexual prevalence and on par with countries like Ethiopia, Angola and Haiti. So for one thing, they found that the U.S. is experiencing a generalized (>1%) epidemic among its poor. What they also found, though, was that while the overall prevalence is highest among blacks, substantially lower among hispanics, and substantially lower still among whites, there was no statistically significant difference in prevalence between the races when looking only at those living in poverty areas. Prevalence was 2.1% among blacks and hispanics, and 1.7% among whites. So if it was necessary to demonstrate the obvious, HIV is a disease that is correlated with poverty; since blacks are poorer than whites, blacks are more likely to be HIV+.
So even though they weren't able to determine that there was a statistically significant difference, taking the numbers at face value still means that prevalence is 24% higher among blacks than whites. That could be explained by the tendency towards having sex with people of one's own race. In a population that already has an elevated prevalence, being a member of a minority race increases the chances of choosing a sexual partner who is infected, and so the epidemic will concentrate itself there.
