It appears that now that the dust has settled on "the chickens are coming home to roost" and "God damn America," the new Wright controversy du jour is the whole AIDS fracas.

Here is something to consider. In 2005, a survey conducted by the Rand Corp and Oregon State University found a sizable number of blacks concur with Rev. Wright's beliefs on the matter.

While it is certainly easy to dismiss such conspiracy theories, the paranoia (and it is paranoia) is not unreasonable. After all, the U.S. government continued the Tuskegee Experiments until 1972. A mere eight years later, people started hearing about a new, scary disease for the first time.

I do not know how old most readers of this post are, but I was alive in 1972. This is a government atrocity committed on its own citizens that continued well into the second half of the 20th Century. As such, I do not think it is easy or even wise to dismiss individuals paranoia out-of-hand.

It might have been not unreasonable when AIDS first came up to believe that the government could have been involved. But AIDS has been studied very extensively now. Since there is a pretty good understanding about where AIDS came from and how it spreads, it does not seem reasonable any longer to believe that it is a government plot to kill black people. At best, isn't this maintaining a belief in the absence of any evidence for it? Doesn't it poison our politics?

Kevin Clark

Exactly. THe original poster was offering an apologist's explanatiuon for the maintenance of an unsupportable and unreasonable belief. The poster did not deny it, just "explain" it.

There is still considerable debate among some segments about the validity of modern AIDS studies. I do not accept these arguments, myself, by prominent research scientists, such as Peter Duesberg question the causes of AIDS.

If a world-renowned cell biologist can question the conventional wisdom, why does it seem unlikely that others wouldn't do so, as well?

Well you're very mistaken. I to was alive in 1972.... and long before that, and to try to perpetuate Rev. Wrights bigoted - divisive - anti white aids myth - just proves - how destructive "Blind Faith" can be!

yeah, question the conventional wisdom and replace it with hysterical, dopey hallucinations...How progressive!

A "world renowned" scientist believes that HIV was invented to kill blacks? I see.

As a graduate student in immunology (granted my project is not related to HIV) I have to say that engineering a virus such as HIV would be a monumental nigh impossible task involving an organization not seen since the Manhattan Project. Besides, even if it could be done HIV is a very stupid way to get rid of your favorite ethnic/racial minority. It takes years to kill and allows the carriers to still breed. Not to mention HIV kills people of all races! Duh. If the government really had the power to concoct something of this magnitude why create such an ineffective agent of genocide? You would want a virus that kills quick, kills young kids more readily before they can breed and is specific. Something based on influenza, measles or Ebola would be better. HIV is an ingenious virus in an evolutionary sense and has been honed through evolution to evade and take advantage of the immune system in order to replicate itself, not to kill to people. Only evolution could produce such an organism, humans just ain’t that smart yet

And that is not what I said. A world renowned scientist by the name of Peter Duesberg disputes the official claims about HIV and AIDS. Maybe had you taken ten seconds to look up information on the individual I mentioned you would have realized that.

I am not arguing that the government invented AIDS--I said it was paranoia borne out of real, incontrovertible historical events, such as the Tuskegee Experiments. I followed this up by saying that you cannot easily dismiss individuals paranoia about the causes of AIDS when even a world renowned cell biologist disputes the official origins of the disease. I am talking purely about psychology here, not evolutionary biology and immunology.

What bigoted anti-white myths? Claiming the government did something is "anti-white." That is the real myth here.

As I have stated from the start, which people seem to have a very hard time grasping is that the belief of a government/AIDS conspiracy is neither unique to Jeremiah Wright nor is it borne out of an anti-white bigotry. The fact that the government did experiment on black individuals well into the late 20th Century, only ending the awful Tuskegee Experiments in 1972 should give everyone pause. It can also explain why some individuals are rightly weary of the government.

Do you deny the Tuskegee Experiments occurred and lasted until 1972? Do you deny that such experiments might breed distrust among the segment of the population that was targeted by these experiments?

It may be unsupportable, but it is not unreasonable. The Tuskegee Experiments lasted until 1972. These experiments targeted black men.

How can you say it is unreasonable for other black men (or women) to distrust the government that perpetrated these crimes against blacks?

Additionally, since there are well-known scientist that dispute the official origins of AIDS (and I am not saying they believe that the government created it to target black people--I am saying that AIDS skeptics run the gamut of beliefs about origins), it is not beyond reason to understand why certain segments of the population may be skeptical themselves.

This is not an apology, this is pure psychology. You are attempting to dismiss someone's views as quackish without investigating the origins of these beliefs. As I have correctly noted, they are neither uncommon nor, necessarily, unreasonable, given real, incontrovertible history of bioethics in this country.

As I said, I do not share these beliefs myself, my argument is one of pure psychology of why individuals might believe conspiracy theories.

However, I strongly urge you to research AIDS skeptics being dismissing it out-of-hand. Here's a start for you. I am not asking you to accept these peoples arguments--I do not accept them myself. My point, all along, has been that if scientist can question a disease, why is it beyond the realm of understanding or possibility that a group of individuals that was targeted for other questionable medical experiments might be a bit paranoid?

Why was the "experiment" involved in the Tuskeegee study?

You should take a look at the facts. There was no experiment in the study. Blacks were denied treatment and the results observed. They should have been treated. They were not. They were not "experimented" on. Check the CDC site, please.