Gbemisola Olujobi writing in truthdig points to racist stereotypes about Africans as oversexed and promiscuous are hampering the efforts of international health organizations to effectively battle the AIDS epidemic. So we get quotes like this from a participant in the 10th International AIDS Conference:
"AIDS would be brought under control only if Africans restrain their sexual cravings."--Dr. Yuichi Shiokawa;
or this, "Sex, love and disease do not mean the same thing to Africans as they do to West Europeans [because] the notion of guilt doesn't exist in the same way as it does in the Judeo-Christian culture of the West."--Professor Nathan Clumeck of the Universite Libre in Brussels, quoted in Le Monde section of The Manchester Guardian Weekly, Dec. 14, 1993.
Olujobi argues that this stereotype prevents the world community from focusing on the true cause of AIDS "such as poverty and the conditions that poverty creates--malnutrition, low immunity, stress, poor sanitation, overcrowding, poor access to health care, substandard health care, rural deprivation and urban squalor--all of which will facilitate the spread of AIDS or, indeed, any other disease."
Leave a comment