Politically incorrect stuff hit the fan with the federal study of teenage girls that rang the alarm about sexually transmitted diseases and along the way found blacks more than twice as much affected or infected than whites, 50% to 20%. Not to worry, however: the Center for Disease Control doc had an answer for this:
[Dr. John] Douglas said African-American girls are probably more vulnerable to STDs because of higher infection rates among blacks as a whole and less access to health care.
The numbers “[do] not mean African Americans are taking greater behavioral risks. In fact, research suggests the opposite,” he said.
OK. For a minute there, we thought they caught more stuff because they did it more — were “taking greater behavioral risks,” as the doc said.
No. Blacks in general are more infected, so sexual looseness is not to be suspected. And they have “less access to health care.”
Hence the yawning chasm of difference. Would the doctor please expand on that thesis? More to the point, would somewhere in this land of ours a desk editor turn to the writer — in this case rewriter and Englisher of the AP copy — and ask her to give the doc a ring?
Times are hard, but a telephone call? Is that too much to ask?
The writer did some calling, true. She got this from the exec director of something called the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health:
“It’s a clear sign that something’s wrong in terms of the way we teach sex education, the way we talk about it, and the message we send to youth,” said Soo Ji Min . . .
. . . who could be on to something. The message we send ignores the option of keeping one’s knickers in place, maybe? We can only guess. No one asked, apparently.
Blithe Spirit 