OPINION
All Americans
need to take AIDS
more seriously
The notion that African
Americans have shied away
from the AIDS issue is factual
but has been overstated in
many cases.
Americans in general, be
they black, white or any shade
in between, have not overly
enthusiastic to embrace the
fight against AIDS or people
living with the disease. The
folks who stonewalled and sat
around idly while AIDS was
reaching epidemic proportions
in this country were not black.
The politicians and decision
makers who Had the
power to act sooner but
were instead led in a J
different direction by J
ignorance and hatred ?
were made up of the M
same good ol' boys
network that still J
exists today, and
only few non- I
whites get mem
bership cards to
that elub.
Even now when I
more information
and science than
ever exist about
AIDS, we don't
see noraes 01
people run
ning to i
AIDS she!- A
t e r s
breaking
down*
h eA
doors to^|
v o I u n
teer. We ^
have not ?
seen real,
everyday
American
truly take a stand or an inter
est in the disease, even
though more evidence than
ever tells us that many of us
are vulnerable to this disease,
regardless of sexual orienta
tion.
To say that blacks have
been afraid to broach the sub
ject of AIDS is only partly
true. The battle is larger than
trying to convince the black
community to take an interest.
There are other fronts, where
many, many, many more non
blacks wait to be enlightened
about AIDS.
Yes. there is a great
amount of ignorance that
exists in the black community
about AIDS. Some of us don't
trust science and believe that
the disease can be contracted
through day-to-day interac
tion: other blacks wrap their
disdain for AIDS and people
living with it around Bible
verses or quotes from their
pastors.
At a recent forum to dis
cuss AIDS and the black
church, only a handful of local
religious leaders bothered to
show. Their apparent lack of
interest only bolsters the
notion that blacks refuse to
address AIDS. But by making
such a notion, we are assum
ing that if a similar meeting
were held with white
pastors, more of them
would take an inter
k est. which is quite
L an assumption.
Locally, we have
seen members of
the white faith
c o in in
take aim at
homosexual stu
W dents in the
f school system in
the last few months.
So it's fair to say that
s there are some non
^ black faith leaders
who are reluctant
as well.
aids edu
cation and
enlighten
k m e n t
should
B b
moved
Bup the
list
the
black
community ^
because the i
disease is run
J priori
ning rampantly through our
neighborhoods. But let's not
forget to school oth' s. uke
the politicians in W..-hington
who have the power to make
the battle against AIDS a more
level fight.
Many blacks do not take
an interest in AIDS for the
same reasons they" do not take
an interest in colon cancer,
heart disease and many other
issues. They are too occupied
with surviving and trying to
make ends meet to focus on
such topics. Most of the time,
it has nothing to do with being
bigoted or afraid.
So to continue the stigma
that the black community is
ignoring AIDS is unfair. The
nation and in many cases the
world are ignoring AIDS to
the detriment of citizens.
fm inn oscar)
I ^ ^sBE^DfmAJDED m
Media biased against liberals
I George E.
Curry
I Guest
.Columnist
k
Veteran CBS News corre
spondent Bernard Goldberg
charges in his best-selling book
that the news media are biased.
He is correct. But his underlining
premise is incorrect: The bias is
against liberals, not conservatives.
Goldberg's book, "Bias," is
getting a lot of play these days
because journalists are bending
over backward to show that they
are not biased against a book crit
ical of their industry. However,
few have done the research neces
sary to determine whether Gold
berg's view of the media is valid
or poppycock.
Fortunately. Geoffrey Nun
berg. a researcher at the Center for
the Study of Language and Infor
mation at Stanford University, has
done the much-needed research.
His findings reveal a lot about the
media and its practice of labeling
political progressives and conser
vatives.
Goldberg writes that when he
first joined CBS News in 1981, he
"noticed that we pointedly identi
fied conservatives, for example,
but for some crazy reason we did
n't bother to identify liberals as
liberals."
Because it's cumbersome, if
not impossible, to do a study of
the words uttered on all of the net
work television news shows,
Nunberg did the next best thing:
He went to an electronic data base
of major newspapers to see if
Goldberg has a valid complaint.
The researcher took the names
of well-known legislators, judges,
entertainers and national organi
zations and compared how they
were described in the media. In
every category, a person was far
more likely to be labeled a liberal
than a conservative.
"The average liberal legislator
has a 30 percent greater likelihood
of being identified with a partisan
label than the average conserva
tive does," Nunbeig said. "The
press describes Barney Frank as a
liberal two-and-a-half times as
frequently as it describes Dick
Armey as a conservative. It gives
Barbara Boxer a partisan label
almost twice as often as it gives
one to Trent Lott. And while it
isn't surprising that the press
applies the label conservative to
Jesse Helms more often than to
any other Republican in the
group, it describes Paul Wellstone
as a liberal 20 percent more fre
quently than that."
Nunberg didn't stop there.
"At first I wondered whether 1
had inadvertently included a
bunch of conservative newspa
pers in my sample." he admitted.
"So I did the same search in just
three newspapers that are routine
ly accused of having a liberal bias.
The New York Times. The Wash
ington Post and the Los Angeles
Times. Interestingly, those papers
tend to use labels of both sorts
slightly less than the other papers
do. But even there, the liberals get
partisan labels 30 percent more
often than conservatives do, the
same proportion asfin the press at
large."
In his book, Goldberg argues
lhat actors Tom Selleck and Bruce
Willis are frequently identified as
conservatives but Barbara
Streisand and Rob Reiner are not
usually referred to as liberals.
"But Goldberg's dead wrong
there, too," Nunberg found. "The
press gives partisan labels to
Streisand and Reiner almost five
times as frequently as it does to
Selleck and Willis. For that mat
ter, Warren Beatty gets a partisan
label twice as often as Arnold
Schwarzenegger, and Norman
Lear gets one more frequently
than Charles Heston does."
Said Nunberg: "It's the same
with other figures. Goldberg
claims that Robert Bork is always
called a conservative whereas
Laurence Tribe is just identified as
a Harvard law professor, but when
you look at the data, it turns out
that the two are labeled with
File Photo
Bruce Willis is known for his conservative political views.
almost exactly the same frequen
cy. Supreme Court Justice Paul
Stevens is identified, as a liberal
more often than Justices Rehn
quist, Scalia or Thomas are identi
fied as conservatives. And the
columnist Michael Kinsley gets a
partisan label slightly more often
than George Will goes."
Nunberg's findings were first
broadcast as commentary on
National Public Radio's "Fresh
Air" and can be found on the
Internet at http://www-csli.stan
ford.edu/%7Enunberg/bias.html.
Labeling or, more accurately,
mislabeling is only one of the
media's misdeeds. Equally trou
bling is how the media have
adopted the language of the right
wing when describing affirmative
action.
Whether it's print or broad
cast, the media are quick to refer
to "race-based" or "gender-based"
college admissions. In fact, no
university in America accepts stu
dents based solely on their race or
gender. Race and gender are
among many factors colleges use
when considering qualified appli
cants. It would be more accurate
to refer to "race-sensitive" or
"gender-conscious" policies
rather than use the buzz words of
the far right. Conservatives, as we
have seen, are the real beneficiar
ies of bias in the media.
George ?. Curry, editor-in
chief of the NNPA New s Service
wul BlackPressUSA.com, is for
mer editor of Emerge: Black
America's Newsmagazine.
Government waste
Armstrong
Williams
Guest
Columnist
April 15 seems like a good
time to ask. what is the govern
ment doing with the money it
takes from us in taxes?
That's the question I put to
David Williams, vice president for
policy at Citizens Against Gov
ernment Waste, a nonpartisan
organization that educates the
public about government mis
management. His response was
straightforward: The government
is wasting billions of taxpayer
dollars in mismanagement and
outright fraud.
An analysis of the 2001 feder
al budget conducted by his organ
ization calculates that the govern
ment squandered $20.1 billion last
year, in "pork." or programs that
use our tax dollafsto benefit spe
cial interests. The jig goes some
thing like this: Congressmen
pump federal money into wealthy
companies who in turn fill the leg
islators' coffers with campaign
contributions and important proj
ects in their home districts.
"This is illegal appropriations
and it's not what they were sent to
Washington to do," Williams said.
Sadly, annual surveys eon
ducted by Citizens Against Gov
ernment Waste indicate that
"pork" spending has nearly dou
bled over the past seven years.
Williams thinks the trend will
continue at a cost of billions to
taxpayers.
Some of the more egregious
examples include the Farm Secu
rity Act. a $73 billion hike in agri
cultural subsidies enacted w ith the
ostensible purpose of aiding
impoverished farmers. However,
restrictions that link these subsi
dies to select crops and tot;d
acreage ensure that wealthy farm
owners, corporate executives and
even other legislators benefit the
most. For example, basketball star
Scottie Pippen and billionaires
Charles Schwab. David Rocke
feller and Ted Turner each
received six-digit farm subsidies
over the past five years.
"Agriculture policy has
become art exercise in "trickle
up" economics - taxing working
Americans to subsidize the
wealthiest farms." observed a
recent report from The Heritage
Foundation, a Washington. D.C.
think tank.
According to a forthcoming
report by the Citizens Against
Government Waste, money
appropriated for AIDS prevention
is regularly tunneled into ques
tionable social programs. For
example, STOP Aids project of
San Francisco received nearly
$700,000 from the Centers for
Disease Control in 2001. Some of
the subsidies were used to sponsor
a seminar on "how to make your
man tremble with delight." In
October, the project sponsored a
seminar for men "curious about
leather and fetish sex."
"Flirting classes and orgasm
coaches, that's not prevention,"
said Williams, who suggests that
the money would be better served
by spending it on safe sex cam
paigns or education initiatives in
Third World countries.
Other examples of govern
ment waste range from $50.(XX)
for a tattoo removal program in
California to Joel-Peter Witkin's
National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA) subsidised photographs of
severed limbs. From rice subsi
dies used to fatten the wallets of
the wealthy to CDC workshops
on sexual gratification, the list of
government waste goes on end
lessly and senselessly.
"We're trying to shame these
people (legislators) into realising
that they're robbing the treasury.
This is illegal appropriations and
it's not what they were sent to
Washington to do," Williams
demanded.
it does not matter.
New government programs
designed to solicit a favorable
reaction from the press and con
stituents continue to be layered
upon the old without any general
standard for measuring their suc
cess. Consequently, the bureau
cracy grows ever larger with the
inevitable result of duplication,
mismanagement and general
waste so pervasive that it costs
taxpayers billions of dollars a
year.
Perhaps we can't solve all of
society's problems. But a good
start would be creating rules of
accountability for those agencies
charged with spending our tax
dollars to improve the quality of
our lives.
That means linking federal
funding to some base line of
accountability for government
Qgencies. That means eliminating
those agencies that fail to demon
strate their worth, and rewarding
those that achieve their professed
goals.
This tax season seems as good
a time as any to demand that the
government stop lining its pork
barrels with our tax dollars.
nMM.urmsmmgwilliams.com
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