Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Copyright: 1998 Chicago Tribune Company
Pubdate: 7 Dec 1998
Author: Salim Muwakkil
Section: Sec. 1

WHO'S TO BLAME?

After surveying the demographics of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, it's not easy to
refute those conspiracy theorists who maintain that black folks are
specifically being targeted.

Not only is Sub-Saharan Africa the epicenter of this planetary plague, but
the entire African Diaspora is disproportionately afflicted. In the U.S.,
for example, African-Americans are the leading victims of the HIV virus.

It's not surprising that white supremacists might see AIDS as God's answer
to their prayers for a race-specific plague. But there are many black
preachers who also sermonize that AIDS is a divinely ordained punishment.
And while that's not exactly a surprise, it's at least ironic.

If there is a racist conspiracy to wipe out black people, some elements of
black leadership seem to be in on it.

Of the estimated 33.4 million people infected with the HIV virus worldwide,
more than 22 million of them are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a
report from the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS. Distressingly, an
estimated 90 percent of the world's new infections in children younger than
15 years were in Africa.

Demographers predict that the ravages of AIDS will reduce life expectancy
in much of Africa by an amazing 20 years in the next two decades,
endangering the depopulated continent's future.

In this country, African-American communities will pay a progressively
higher price in lost lives and squandered possibilities. The price already
is too high: While African-Americans are about 13 percent of the U.S.
population, they represent more than 50 percent of all new cases of HIV
infection, according to recent figures released by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.

That number is rising most rapidly among African-American women, who now
are 17 times more likely to contract the disease than white women. The HIV
virus is the leading killer of African-Americans age 25 to 44. This grim
toll is a social catastrophe.

Despite the enormous scope of this tragedy, black leadership has only
recently mobilized to confront this epidemic. Last summer, the
Congressional Black Caucus deemed AIDS a national emergency and
successfully pushed President Clinton to earmark $156 million for treatment
and prevention programs in the previously underserved black community.

Since many black groups are clergy-led and doctrinally opposed to
homosexuality, the notion that AIDS is a gay plague prevented--and still
prevents--them from forthrightly addressing the disease. Many leaders
simply were embarrassed by the racial disparity of AIDS victims and
preferred deadly denial to embarrassment.

And, as I noted earlier, many black preachers also believe AIDS is God's
righteous judgment on serious sinners. There are exceptions, of course. In
Chicago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Minister
Louis Farrakhan are among the most notable of those exceptions. And while
more churches are stepping up to the plate, they still are lonely players.

Many of the people who see AIDS as God's wrath are the same ones who deride
risk-reduction precautions. Needle-exchange programs, for example, are
condemned as pretexts for pushing drugs to blacks, yet most studies
demonstrate that such programs are effective in slowing HIV
transmission--especially since the largest percentage of African-Americans
who contract the virus (43 percent) do so through intravenous drug use.

These folks also tend to discourage candid discussion about condom use: too
much sex talk. And even though the success of the white gay community in
restraining the spread of HIV demonstrates that prevention programs work
(as in Uganda, where AIDS deaths have slowed considerably because of
aggressive prevention efforts), these groups remain opposed to the few
programs that do exist.

Although they posture as moralists, their reactionary preachments have had
an extremely immoral affect: premature death.

Complicating the issue are that legion of folks who blame AIDS on an evil,
racist plot.

Well, let me offer a plausible alternative: rain forests--which are most
numerous on the African continent--are teeming factories of biological
complexity and contain thousands, perhaps millions, of opportunistic
viruses waiting for the right organism to come along to aid their
proliferation.

The African green monkey reportedly provided that link to the human
population for the HIV virus, just as the colobus monkey is theorized to be
the bridge for the even more deadly ebola virus. Africans are
disproportionately infected because of proximity, poverty and illiteracy.

There also are several reasons why African-Americans have become primary
targets of this murderous virus: disproportionate incarceration, where
homosexual sex is more common, higher incidence of IV-drug use and poverty,
fewer resources for prevention programs, cultural reluctance to condom use,
lower marriage rates/higher sexual promiscuity and many other non-genocidal
reasons.

But even if those reasons are wrong and racist white scientists concocted
this deadly virus as the final solution for black people: then what?

Do we thwart genocide or intentions by committing suicide? 
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Checked-by: Mike Gogulski