From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: AIDS and all that jazz
Date: 15 Dec 92 14:55:52 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: pmmst8+@pitt.edu (Paul M Mweene)

In article <704@blue.cis.pitt.edu>, pmmst8+@pitt (Paul M Mweene) writes:
>>I've said it repeatedly: increased transportation, and incorrect Western
>>medical procedures.

>This is rubbish. The first time that large scale migration of people
>stopped has been this century, since the partition of Africa into
>countries.

It hasn't stopped the refugees.

>	    In the last 100 hundred years fewer Africans have moved
>than at any comparable time in out history. This is especially true
>in central which is a relativley recently populated area.

You are speaking rank nonsense.  There haven't even _been_ as many people
100 years ago as there are today, let alone as much movement.  AIDS is
found most heavily on the high transportation routes.  There has certainly
been lots of migrational movement over the centuries.  But regular daily
and weekly and monthly commutes over large distances in vast quantities?
That takes modern transportation.

Are you also going to tell me that blood transfusions have been a common
tribal medicine practice for centuries?

>What is more, AIDS is an urban phenomena in Africa where as the opposite would
>be the case if it was an "indigenous" disease.

It does not follow.  Urbanity is where the disease will explode.

>					        Secondly, the place where there
>is likely to be "wrong" use of western medicine is the rural area, yet up to
>a year ago (when I had my last statistics, the incidence their was still near
>ly 0% of all cases, except in Uganda). 

Likely, yes.  The wrong use of Western medicine still occurs in the cities.

>Secondly AIDS in Africa apeared after 1982.

The first documented HIV+ case is 1959.

>					     It appeared more or less simul
>taneously at the same time in urban areas of central Africa.

It exploded more else simultaneously in urban areas.  Modern transportation
makes it possible.

>							      Lastly, why is
>it that if AIDS was an African disease that A.Americans and others in the 
>diaspora did not have high infection rates??????

Because they weren't there.  When I've been talking about AIDS could be
a disease of African origin, I've been referring to the continent, not
the people.  You're thinking of something like sickle-cell anemia.

>>I believe "slim disease" goes back to the seventies.

>Even more ignorance. Slim disease, was to Africans any condition in which
>the patient became emacited. This due to many illnesses, such as TB of the
>bone. Further more, I know many people who suffer from one slim condition
>or another but are not hiv+. 

"Slim disease" as a separate diagnostic category that later turned out
to be AIDS goes back to the seventies.  Lots of weight-loss syndromes
exist, yes.

>Any disaese whic deprives a patient of an appettite long enough will ema
>ciate them. Also, there are many diseases in the western hemisphere which
>emaciate patients but are not AIDS.

Right.

>>>>Sure they do.  The same as the heterosexual term.  The only reason English
>>>>has words like "homosexuality" or "heterosexuality" for the two notions
>>>>is because doctors in the 1800s discovered homosexuality and needed a
>>>>clinical term to describe it.

>First of all this is ridiculous. Homosexuality WAS not discovered by the
>english in the 1800.

The idea that guys could solely be attracted to guys was completely new
to most Victorian age doctors.

>>In pointing out the non-existence of homosexuality and bestiality,
>>he mentions that the concept exists, but no one would do such a
>>thing.  For support, he mentions one conversation he overheard that
>>went like (in translation) "I'd like to screw that girl" in a rather
>>crude manner, and to cover this, someone joked "What, instead of
>>screwing a boy or goat?" and everyone laughed.

>What is this speculation. This man was looking for holes and couldn't find
>them and therefore resolved to speculate.

What speculation????

>>This sort of thing is beyond language.  If you want to describe sexual
>>acts between men, and don't have a word, you just use the words for
>>sexual acts between men and women and name the participants.
>>(I don't have the book handy, but I can provide an exact reference if you
>>like.)

>It seems to me that you won't accept even what this fellow of yours 
>said.

What are you talking about?  He didn't see any homosexuality in the place
he was looking.  I've long agreed that it's rare in most of black Africa,
and stuff like the above is part of the reason.

>>You didn't understand what I was saying.  "Homosexuality" is an artificial
>>word, introduced into the English language by doctors, who took the term
>>from German doctors, where it was just as artificial.

>This is gabbage. Sodomy is an age old european occupation.

I'm talking about _language_, not acts, because you raised the issue.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)