Friday, June 13, 2008
While only 6% of the state's population is black, about 28% of people living with HIV/AIDS in Massachusetts are non-Hispanic blacks
HIV/AIDS has largely slipped beneath the public's radar, but it continues to exact a heavy toll among African-Americans, say health authorities who are launching education and testing campaigns in five Massachusetts cities, including Lynn, where rates of new infections are among the state's highest. The North Shore's largest city has seen an influx of immigrants and refugees in recent years from many African countries, where infection rates among young adults can approach 40%. Education in some of their homelands about HIV/AIDS transmission and treatment is minimal. Lynn has the fifth highest rate of new HIV infections among African-Americans and other black residents, according to the state's latest data. Boston recorded the highest, followed by Springfield, Brockton, and Worcester. Especially troubling to public health authorities are numbers indicating that 36% of black immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts from sub-Saharan African and Caribbean Basin countries who test positive for the blood-borne virus are diagnosed with full-blown AIDS within two months, which means they've lived with - and likely transmitted - the virus for several years, said disease trackers.
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I've lived in Lynn. I think this is an issue to be won by the mainstream, politically correct conservatives ... in other words, I don't think the problems in Lynn come down to a matter of race the way they so often do when dealing with crime and AIDS. Lynn is *only* 10 percent black, and about 20% Hispanic (mostly Puerto Rican). I think the real problem here is Lynn's generous welfare programs. Welfare in Massachusetts is supplied by the state, but the guidelines for who qualifies are determined by the individual cities. So there is nothing stopping a city from dedicating itself to becoming a welfare haven for the world and financing it with money taken from taxpayers in the other cities. And this is what Lynn seems to have decided to do. I've even heard an anecdote from a friend who visited Puerto Rico and heard an ad on the radio advertising the city as a welfare haven for Puerto Ricans who can't make a living in Puerto Rico.
Also, in case you decided to go visit Wikipedia and check up the demographics: the Asians in Lynn are virtually all Vietnamese, Cambodians, and other Southeast Asian nationalities who fled Communism but don't have a chance in hell of making it rich in America. But they have their welfare benefits and they're not gonna complain.
I think the real problem here is Lynn's generous welfare programs.
But those programs exist because they appeal to black voters in particular.
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