I do feel for your friends and anyone else who has contracted HIV or any other incurable disease for that matter just as I feel for those with cancer. I'm happy that they are living with the disease rather than dying of it. The just of my post was to reply to R-Tistic's comments about HIV positive people wearing a warning flag because like I said, I don't think that will help at all. We all know about the stigma and discrimination associated with **** and a lot of it comes from fear of the unknown. Also, I said people will cry that they don't know how they got it, when in fact, they hadn't protected themselves. If you didn't get that out of my post, then sorry, maybe you should read it again. If, after you reread my post, you still think I'm arrogant, then hey, that's fine with me. :wink:
I recently attended an international **** conference and to see so many people affected by this virus worldwide is just crazy. Also, to attend so many sessions where people presented abstracts on HIV in various parts of the US and to notice that mostly the same reasons for infection were presented makes you think. And in all studies related to the US, African Americans had the highest risk behaviors. Just like the uneducated person I was, I sat through the first session and was like "man, this white woman is trying to make us look like we're the only people in the US with ****" because in the first study less than half of the participants were African American but the results that she found most important were those related to black people. It was then that my friend explained to me that the woman wasn't picking on blacks, but rather presenting the p- values that were most significant and showed the greatest correlation between blacks and high risk behaviors. After a few more sessions, a few more workshops, and a few more presenters, I realized she wasn't lying.
I understand what you are saying and I was not trying to come at you wrong at all. I just wanted to get my point out about a few things. This si a srious problem in the black community and I just want people to be educated about this virus and not to treat those that do have it any less than anyone else.
