Half of the Black Population in NYC Has Genital Herpes?
By Daniel Miessler on June 15th, 2008: Tagged as America | Culture | Education | Sex
This is insane. The United States of America in the 21st century, and one in four people in NYC has genital herpes. And the breakdowns are even more staggering.
36% of women have it, but only 19% of men. 49% of blacks have it, but only 14% of whites. 49% of blacks? Half? Are you kidding me? WTF is going on with the black folks and the women in that town? Who are these people? Where do they hang out? Where did they go to school? What caused this?
This is an example of a culture problem that needs addressing — especially since herpes isn’t the only negative outcome of sex that can often result in an STD. And the approach to this problem doesn’t call for an “equal but different culture” theme, but rather a “what the fuck are you doing” theme. We’re talking about ignorant, adult-age children hurting themselves, not equals making informed decisions.
Society suffers when people suffer. It’s our responsibility to keep those within our society from hurting themselves. The question is, how do we do this without becoming the culture police? How do you do it without infringing on basic freedoms? And given the numbers we’re dealing with, combined with a political correctness backdrop, how do we even begin to address the issue without being labeled racist and sexist?
Those numbers don’t really say too much by themselves. Some questions the answers to which might be useful:
(1) How is the disease spread? Do some people have a higher predisposition to contracting the disease if they contact it? Does condom use prevent its spread?
(2) As for the breakdowns by gender and race: Do blacks and whites have the same number of sexual partners? Do men and women? (I take it that you’re assuming that the answer is no, but the herpes numbers do not imply that.)
(3) Do blacks and whites have the same number of inter-racial partners? Does that question even have any meaning? What definition of “black” and “white” is being used in the study?
…
This is a good example of the sort of thing that our friends at “Improbable Research” try to point out in their study guides. See for example:
http://improbable.com/2008/06/12/improbable-research-teachers’-guide/
All that said .. I agree with your implied premise that it would be nice if the numbers weren’t so high.
Comment by Carl M — 6/15/2008 @ 2:16 pm
I think in cases like this, you need a culture change that is sparked from within the culture. Prominent and respected blacks in the community need to speak out about the issue in question and inspire their own people to willingly change their behavior.
Comment by Maxo — 6/15/2008 @ 9:38 pm
@ Maxo:
Fair enough, but I’d think that you’d go on to say:
I think in cases like this, you need a culture change that is sparked from within the culture. Prominent and respected women in the community need to speak out about the issue in question and inspire their own people to willingly change their behavior.
I think in cases like this, you need a culture change that is sparked from within the culture. Prominent and respected men in the community need to speak out about the issue in question and inspire their own people to willingly change their behavior.
I think in cases like this, you need a culture change that is sparked from within the culture. Prominent and respected whites in the community need to speak out about the issue in question and inspire their own people to willingly change their behavior.
— Where do we draw the line? Which numbers are acceptable?
… but more to the point … do the different numbers imply correspondingly different behavior? How do we know?
Comment by Carl M — 6/16/2008 @ 11:00 am