Ghost of a flea

I very rarely disclose what it is I do, but suffice to say that I'm a government worker in the AIDS and STD field, doing direct interventions.

When I read the crap from Wright, I couldn't say I'd never heard it, but to say that it's common or 'not controversial' is balderdash.

We struggle enough with the hard slog of trying to get people to change very basic sexual behaviors - put a condom on! Think! - and we don't need this working against us, we don't need the imprimatur of a Presidential candidate-to-be on it. We're out there trying to save lives.

The worst, maybe, is his laying the blame for drug use on 'rich whites'. I've had this discussion so many times: What is the one, single thing to change that would have the greatest impact on preventing HIV?

For me, its drug use. Every single time I've interviewed anybody with HIV or repeated STD infections, drugs have been associated. Its simple and obvious, really. People tend to make abysmally stupid decisions when on drugs.

I did my Master's field research with the AIDS Committee of Ottawa and was for several years after a member of an education and outreach advisory board. I participated in designing the first Canadian national survey on men's sexual behaviour vis a vis HIV/AIDS (this coordinated by Laval University) and worked with the local public health officer and some excellent people from what was then Health & Welfare Canada. I also interviewed and got to know more people than I can remember who were living with HIV, many of whom have subsequently died.

Much as what is now parodically calling itself "the left" waxes apoplectic at conservative clergy from televangelists to the Pope but will give a pass to any outrage by a designated victim group - including and especially Muslims - the same double-standard is applied to some (literally) ignorant pronouncements by government officials in the early 1980s vs the evil filth being pimped out by Wright and his ilk.

This CIA, anti-black conspiracy stuff fills me with a blind rage. It is a kind of game these bastards are playing with people's lives. It is no different to me than the - not coincidentally - same people who fantasize any 9/11 plot excepting, of course, the actual 9/11 plot.

Regarding drug use: The same Wright-style "aescetic priests" also claim the CIA distributes crack and so forth in black communities as a vehicle of oppression. So to them drug use and AIDS are part and parcel of the same white conspiracy.

Yes, I [unfortunately] know.

It may amuse you in it's own pathetic way to know that, when I've had the conversation about The Single Thing to do to prevent HIV with Blacks, especially teens [who are hardest hit these days it seems], the answer is almost always: Increase self-esteem. I shit you not.

Maybe this whole 'whitey did it' thing feeds that delusion, I couldn't say, but I do know that we've had 20+ years of self-esteem and we wound up with... HIV, drug use, illegitimacy, widespread crime, ignorance, inversion of values, etc. I'd say the results are in on that experiment.

One of the main reasons I left teaching was down to the same cult of self-esteem. It has produced generations of people who have never - never - been criticized and is producing generations of teachers with the same problem. Every year I would find students returning to my classes after I had kicked them out of my lecture theatre for answering cell phones, carrying on private conversations, etc. At first I was baffled that the worst offenders would gravitate to me but belatedly realized it was because I was the first person in authority they had ever met who provided them with any discipline.

It seems to me self-esteem is at the root - or is at least symptomatic - of our problems in confronting a mortal enemy.

I don't know if its symptom or root, I really don't. All I know is that it won't do anybody any good for me to go to an HIV-risk population and encourage them to feel proud of themselves for whatever they do. Its just so irresponsible, yet community leaders consistently play it up, receive Federal funds, etc. for it.

Nick - always a pleasure. Gotta go.

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