Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male

[still_one]

The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male<1> also known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Pelkola Syphilis Study, Public Health Service Syphilis Study or the Tuskegee Experiments was a clinical study, conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama, in which 399 (plus 201 control group without syphilis) poor — and mostly illiterate — African American sharecroppers were denied treatment for Syphilis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreate...

[panader0]

1. And this has what to do with the primaries?

[still_one]

5. Perhaps to understand the perspective of Jeremiah Wright, or at least where he was coming from /n

[tokenlib]

10. About equal importance with Dr.Wright's "controversial" comments...

There have been times when our country has been damnably bad...

[Forkboy]

26. If you don't get it by now you never will.

[WinkyDink]

27. Wait a minute. Aren't Obama supporters claiming this ISN'T about race??

I voted for Jesse Jackson back in the day. I resent history's being used as a weapon against Democrats who just might not care for Barack Obama and who are ALSO Liberals with bona-fides.

[Forkboy]

30. Sadly, it has become about both race and gender.

Which was inevitable I think.

I totally do get your point, but at least you get the point trying to be made in the OP (one that IS valid, but that doesn't fit all people, such as yourself). Your complaint about a broad brush attack is fair, but I think most (not all) people, whether they be Obama fans or not (I'm not), understand it doesn't apply to everyone who dislikes Obama.

[pocoloco]

2. God Bless America???

[jlake]

3. Saddam Hussein has ties to Al Qaeda

[alteredstate]

8. You really don't get it, do you?

[jlake]

11. Yeah, I really do. Trying to tie outlandish claims to a legitimate travesty.

[alteredstate]

13. So, you don't get it.

[jlake]

14. Why don't you lay it out for me?

Quit with the mystique of superiority - what do you think I don't get?

[OhioBlue]

15. The Rev mentioned

Tuskegee in one of the clips that they showed on TV - one that people find so offensive.

The Reverend was telling the truth about a very ugly part of our American History that is obviously too much for some people to face. It isn't Reverend Wrights remembering of the event that people should find offensive. It is the fact that this occurred and it was done by OUR Government.

[jlake]

16. But he also claimed the US government created AIDS to kill AAs.

The Reverend is a disingenuous demagogue of the highest order.

[OhioBlue]

19. so does this claim negate the ugliness

of what our Government did in Tuskegee?

[jlake]

21. absolutely not, but it negates his credibility - completely.

[OhioBlue]

23. maybe he knows something we don't

I don't believe that the Government created AIDS.

But then, I grew up thinking that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman and Ronald Reagan was a good President.

[Recursion]

18. Ummm... that is false. The Tuskegee study is not

You do know that this actually happened, right?

[jlake]

20. Yes, but it is used as a smokescreen for the Reverend claiming the US government

created AIDS to kill AAs.

Hence my post.

[pop goes the weasel]

32. I don't think you know what a smokescreen is

If an event is used to disguise what is really going on, that's a smokescreen.

If an event is used to provide background to understand what is going on, that's history. It can be erroneous history, but that still doesn't make it a smokescreen. A lot of black Americans with average educational backgrounds think that the Tuskegee study was a government plot to infect them all with syphilis. The truth of what happened, that the scientists involved assumed that syphilis was more prevalent in the black community, and that those same scientists for 40 years did not divulge to their subjects that they had syphilis, and did not at any time attempt to offer a cure--even after a sure cure was available--is bad enough, and is the seed for the common black interpretation of the event. This is no different than white Americans being convinced that dropping the atomic bomb on Japanese civilians was necessary to end World War II. That Japan had already sought terms of surrender is overlooked because that doesn't fit with the prevalent worldview of whites. People interpret events in light of their mythos. Tell them something that doesn't fit their mythos, and they will downplay it, ignore it, or accuse you of being a liar.

[Faygo Kid]

4. How DARE Rev. Wright be offended by this.

Doesn't he know, his role is to STFU?

[still_one]

7. My point exactly. We are molded by our experiences, and what we have gone through /nt

[thunder rising]

6. And just as appalling is the American Psychological Association studying torture in Iraq

[still_one]

9. Or intentional radiation exposure to GIs in the Nevada desert /nt

[JohnnyLib2]

12. Valuable OP. Painful reminder.

Thanks.

[Frances]

17. Thanks for the link

This topic came up in another thread. I remembered the study, but I had forgotten the details.

Having grown up in segregated Alabama, I have witnessed terrible mistreatment of African Americans in many different arenas.

However, I think that the best way to get Obama elected is to do what Obama has been doing in his campaign: face forward. That's how Obama has inspired so many people to join him and work for his election.

[reflection]

22. shameful. n/t

[pop goes the weasel]

24. this really is important

I know that a lot of my fellow whites don't get it, but the Tuskegee study is one of the many reasons that blacks don't trust whites in power. You might think this is just some old thing that happened and was over with in 1972. For blacks, this is a cautionary tale. Even high school drop outs have heard something about it, though they may not know the story well or accurately. Every group has their history stories--simplified, rote, unbalanced--about what has made them into who they are, and these stories shape how they face the world. White America refuses to acknowledge the validity of black America's stories, insisting that the white America stories are the only legitimate ones, the only legitimate way to be an American. And it isn't. There are many ways of being an American, and maybe, just maybe, the best American is the one who knows that their country has done awful things, and demands that changes be made, yet loves America all the same.

[K Gardner]

28. Its important b/o its historical significance AND because its one of the damned clips they keep

playing.

[pop goes the weasel]

31. they?

Sorry, lost you.

[K Gardner]

33. they = media keeps playing the clip where he references this incident..

[alteredstate]

25. kicked

[Cameron27]

29. Horrible and inhumane,

but how does Rev. Wright's flamboyant taunts, and mocking delivery bring reconciliation to old wounds? What's his intention, and what's his solution? And the biggest question, how does Jeremiah Wright's sermons fit into Obama's platform of unity, and an end to the politics of divisiveness?