arthurhu@uunet.UU.NET (Arthur Ta-Chuan Hu) (07/05/90)
Arthur Hu
Asian Week
To the USENET community: Here's a column I had published in Asian Week
in San Francisco, and the response. Please email any comments on Asians,
AIDS, and gay Asians.
Asians and AIDS
I've got more bad news for those who think that, as people
of color, Asians must be worse off than whites. Asians may
be the fastest growing group for AIDS, but what nobody will
say is the fact that they're still by far the least likely
group to get it, or why that is. Asians got 23% of the AIDS
prevention funds in 1990 in San Francisco. That might be in
line with the 23% Asian population in 1980, but with the
population probably closer now to 28%, Asians were only 3%
of cases, and half of those were Filipino.
Compared to whites and blacks, Asians are 1/20 as likely to
have AIDS among gay men. Even Filipinos are only 1/10, and
that means that all other Asians are 1/30. No wonder people
used to think Asians were immune to AIDS. Obviously, this is
false since it's starting to spread to Asia, but its
important to see why it's taken so long to hit Asians.
One silly idea is it's because of the Asian diet, but no one
is willing to state the more obvious theory that Asians
simply have less sex, whether hetero or homo. By the same
token that's the same reason why it is so widespread in
Africa, and low-income black communities, where it affects
both sexes more equally. The chances of transmitting the
virus by hetero is maybe 1 in a 1000, but if millions do it,
it works just the same. Anyone who says that AIDS doesn't
discriminate just doesn't know the facts.
I know in the 60's ethic how immoral it is to advocate
having less sex, but there simply isn't any other reasonable
explanation. Maybe it's hard to believe but as recently as
1981, only half of Japanese 18-yr olds had kissed, and 26
percent of boys and 17 percent of Japanese girls had sex.
Compare that to a US study in the 70's that put 72 percent
boys and 57 percent of girls having sex by age 19.
I did a phone survey of MIT undergraduates last year. An
equal 40% of whites and Asians said that they didn't have
sex. What was more interesting is that while 33% of 15
whites admitted to having sex, and 28% passed on the
question, no Asians admitted it, and all 62% wimped out. Now
I personally know that Asian MIT students aren't all
celibate, but that fact that not one of 13 would admit it is
a sign of something.
Everyone talks about how low Japanese teen pregnacy rate and
how good Japanese students are, why is no one is willing to
make the connection with sex? You know what morals are
today when the hottest movie is an updated Cinderalla story
about a hooker produced by Disney. Let's see if I get this
right. It's no big deal to have sex for money, but she won't
kiss a guy on the lips. What really gets me is what happens
when her shining knight finally rescues her, and he asks
what happens next -- The correct answer (and that's not what
she gives) is that THEY GET MARRIED, stupid! But that's too
radical a concept for modern audiences, I guess.
Back in the April 6 issue, did anybody notice that Asians
were only 2% of those in jail? Since they're around 27% of
the population, and whites are about at half their
population level, Asians are only half as likely whites to
be in San Francisco jails. Don't tell me, it's because of
racial discriminiation, right?
Everyone knows that the Japanese live the longest in the
world, right? Wrong. They may live longer than white
Americans, but Asians in California live the longest. Japan
is 75.6 for men, 81.4 for women, compared to 72.3 and 79.3
for whites in the state and 79.2 and 85.8 for Asian
Californians. Surprise! Chinese and Koreans in California
also have infant mortality rates that are half that of
whites. What the recent Asian health conference did miss
that a huge percentage of Asians don't have any health
insurance. An article a couple of weeks back showed that
half of surveyed Chinese had no health insurance, which even
surprised me
The latest drop out rate reports show that, as usual Asians
have the lowest drop out rate of any race in San Francisco,
at 1.3 percent for Chinese compared to 4 percent for whites
and hispanics and 6 percent for blacks. Figures for
California, Seattle, Boston, and New York also put the Asian
drop out rate at half that of other students even though
Census figure show that urban Asians often have incomes as
low as other minority groups with much higher drop out
rates. Must be discrimination again.
Now don't jump all over my case because I think Asians don't
have problems. They do, and I think it's great that people
are looking into it. But I think it's equally dumb to get
into this silly game of going for the award for "most
wretched minority", when there're an awful lot to be learned
from why Asians are often better off than average.
--------------------
I got a nasty reply from Asian AIDS activists, here's my response:
The Politics of AIDS
I'd like to thank Michael Foo and his friends at the
Asian/Pacific AIDS Coalition and the Gay Asian Pacific
Alliance Community HIV Project for their timely response to
my column on AIDS. But let's see who's talking when we're
speaking about irresponsibility and lack of facts.
While AIDS isn't the only issue dominated by a 60's leftist
agenda, it's probably the only issue where the only
representative of the White House at the largest national
conference on the problem was completely drowned out by
shouting, whistles, and even sirens while he gave the
closing address. ACT UP has achieved the status of folk
heros among the gay community by upholding the motto that
anything can be solved if you raise enough hell. Among these
folks, advocacy and emotionalism is the name of the game,
and objectivity is a dirty word.
With all due respect to Asian Week, they've been nearly the
only source of detailed information on Asians and AIDS that
I've seen other than adding up the "Other" column on local
breakdowns. My column has been the first (admittedly
overdue) column on the subject that I've seen in this paper.
And I am trying to bring out the point that there's a heck
of a lot that's not being said because of politics.
I did not dispute that Asians are the fastest growing group.
But it's a increase from nothing to almost nothing compared
to what's going on in the white gay and IV using
communities, so it's very misleading to imply that Asian are
at a greater risk than other groups when they are the group
at the lowest risk. Data on Asians is scarce, but not
nonexistent. Unfortunately, Asians are usually not tracked
separately, but since there aren't a lot of Native
Americans, and the remaining percentage is still less than
Asians alone, the fact remains that Asians are far under
their proportions when it comes to AIDS.
Most of the data in the previous column came from the tables
and graphs in the San Francisco Chronicle April 2, 1990 page
A8.
White Black Latin Asian NAm
Aids Cases in SF 89-90 84% 5% 8% 2% <1%
non-IV gay/bi men 90-92 81% 7% 9% 3% <1%
AIDS prevention funds 89-90 45% 18% 19% 12% 6%
90-91 0% 26% 27% 23% 10%
White Black Latin Asian NAm
2
SF Population 1980 Census 63% 14% 13% 23% .5%
1990 Projection based on +17% Hispanic, +93% Asian,
+9% White and +19% Black increase
42% 11% 15% 31% .4%
White Black Latin Asian NAm
Cases / Population 1.8 .63 .56 .12 <1.0
Rate / White 100 1/3 1/3 1/17 NA
Filipino Other Asian
Est Population 7% 21%
AIDS Cases 1.5% 1.5%
Rate .21 .07
Vs. White 1/10 1/26
If only 9% of funds are going to Asians as Mr. Foo claims,
it's the fault of the Chronicle, not me. It's a fair amount
of work to analyze how different races compare based on
representation. I had to make an estimate of the city's
racial composition, and then compare by dividing the AIDS
population with the actual population, and then divide again
to compare how each group did compared to whites. A
spreadsheet helps, but a pocket calculator does fine too.
You may note that blacks and Latinos are only at 1/3 risk of
whites. But these figures are for gays only. If you include
IV drug use and heterosexual contact, blacks and Latinos are
actually at a much higher risk than most whites. Based on
this analysis, Filipinos are at 1/10 the risk of whites, and
other Asians are at 1/26.
I also have comparable analyses of AIDS by race in other
cities and states. I called San Mateo County, King County
(Seattle), and the Los Angeles County health departments to
get city-wide AIDS rates. Massachusetts AIDS rates are from
the Boston Globe July 3, 1989 page 24, and I called the New
York City Health Department to follow up on a NY Times July
15, 1988 page B1 article on babies with AIDS to find out
figures for Asians. I have Census figures breaking down
populations by race, updated to reflect immigration since
1980.
Population Estimates, 1990
Seattle LA San Mateo Massachusetts
White 83.7% 49.1% 66.0% 88.6%
Black 4.3% 9.5% 4.8% 4.8%
Latino 2.9% 31.8% 14.0% 14.9%
Asian 8.2% 9.2% 14.6% 1.9%
NatAm 0.8% 0.5% 0.0% 0.4%
Percent of AIDS Cases
Seattle LA San Mateo Massachusetts
White 89.0% 64.0% 76.1% 70.0%
Black 7.0% 16.0% 9.5% 20.0%
3
Latino 3.0% 18.0% 9.5% 9.1%
Asian 2.0% 1.0% 3.3% 0.8%
Rate of AIDS in babies per 1000 in New York City 1988
White .40
Black 2.07
Latino 1.06
Asian .10
Comparison of AIDS rates to Whites
Seattle LA San Mateo NYC Massachusetts
Black 154% 130% 170% 518% 525%
Latino 96% 43% 56% 265% 255%
Asian 23% 8% 20% 25% 51%
Mr. Foo asserts that there is NO credible evidence that
Asians are at less risk than other groups. What he means is
that there is little evidence either way, and that's only
because no one but me has bothered to try tallying up the
Asians. Every city and state surveyed here shows that Asians
are at worst 1/2 as likely as whites, and at best 1/20
compared to whites. Nationally, "Others" were less than 1%
in 1988. Asians and Native Americans combined are now 4% of
the population, which makes them 1/4 their representation.
The low rates of AIDS would be a lot easier to explain if
people knew a few things about the gay Asian community.
Unfortunately, almost no data exists, though perhaps Mr. Foo
could help by doing some surveys to get some harder (!)
data. However, given the turnout at the 1990 Gay Parade, it
seemed that outside of specific Asian groups, there were
very few Asians, much less so than African-Americans or
Latinos, who were sprinkled about quite liberally. The Asian
gays that did show up seemed to be of the Americanized
variety, which is not surprising given that homosexuality is
completely taboo in traditional cultures. Here, being gay
is only marginally worse than being a hippie, and that's
normal in this town. It also indicates that what population
there is isn't very integrated into the main gay community.
A quick scan of the personals in the San Francisco Guardian
showed one gay Asian male among 40 some listings, compared
to 1 Asians for every two whites in the population. That's
our factor of 20 right there, so the low rates may be simply
due to the low number of Asians active in the "mainstream"
SF gay community. If gays are 10% nationally (based on
studies in the 40's), and SF is 20%, then if we apply the
1/20 ratio, then only 1% of Asians, or 1,440 would be part
of the gay community at risk of AIDS. One recent LA Times
editorial put the rate of HIV infection of gays in the city
at near 50%, which would yield about 700 people. Nationally,
about one-tenth of those infected are thought to have the
disease, so we might expect 70 to be stricken now, which is
4
in the ballpark of the 150 Asians who actually have the
disease.
If there are simply fewer gay Asians, then there's no
magical genetic or lifestyle protection other than avoiding
high-risk populations and behavior. That would mean that
gay Asians who hang out with everybody else have exactly the
same chances of getting or having AIDS as any other gay guy,
and those looking for a gay Asians won't be any less likely
to get AIDS. (Those same personals had 2 of 40 seeking cute
Asian guys) Don't quote that as fact, but it could the basis
of further study. If Mr Foo and friends don't mind
interviewing and surveying Asian gays on how assimilated
they are, and who and how they hang out with, maybe we would
bear this out with facts, not political defensiveness.
As for African Americans and getting AIDS through sex, I
know exactly what I am talking about, and I am not bound by
the taboo that anything that is offensive is therefore false
by political definition. AIDS is offensive, sex (or in the
case of Gays, a lack of it) is offensive, and race is
offensive. And it is precisely denial of facts and avoidance
of facts that's only going to make the AIDS epidemic even
worse.
Nobody wants to talk about anal sex, but here it goes. The
reason gay men are the most prone to AIDS is because anal
sex (that's putting a penis into an anus) is the best way to
transmit the virus. The anus is full of blood vessels that
can transmit AIDS, and was simply not evolved for this sort
of activity, though I suppose it works well enough for two
guys when you don't have a vagina to work with. Condoms are
pretty good protection, though I'm not sure I'd want to be
just one condom failure away from getting AIDS.
The vagina (that's what women have) is better designed to
protect from diseases, though the prevalence of venereal
diseases shows that even this organ wasn't cut out to handle
extreme cases of promiscuity. The vagina is perhaps 1/10 to
1/20 as effective for AIDS as the anus, but if you do it 20
times, it will work just the same. In Africa and Haiti,
people are desperately poor, and if the wife does
prostitution to supplement the family income, she'll get
AIDS from her customers, and give it to her husband and
babies.
In the Sunday Examiner's Image of June 17, 1990, Dr. Jean
Pape says of Haitians "it is this promiscuous behavior which
politics, we don't hear much about precisely how AIDS gets
around Africa so fast or some of the more unusual family
customs, but we do know AIDS is probably spread exclusively
through heterosexual contact, and the chances that everyone
is monogamous are practically nil.
5
Low-income African-Americans and Latinos are particularly at
risk because of the combination of high sexual activity, and
IV drug use. Shared needles are the other great way to get
HIV into the bloodstream, as is giving birth to a baby, who
will stand a 50% chance of inheriting the virus. The higher
teen pregnancy rates of African Americans and Latinos is
well documented, though the rate for Asians appears to be
comparable to that of whites. Note that there are some
Asians babies with AIDS in New York and Los Angeles.
Actual figures comparing the sexual activity of whites and
blacks are hard to get, probably because nobody wants to
talk about it. Many will argue that it is a myth because
they don't cite figures. But fact is, according to a 1983
national survey, 59.4% of black females were sexually active
by 18, compared to 42% for whites. 85% of blacks were
active, compared to 64% for whites. Any other study you can
dig up will show you exactly the same thing.
You can argue all you want about morality, but as a health
issue, the combination of sex and drugs is just bad news. If
saying that minorities are more prone to sex and drugs is
racist, then so be it. I will say that both sex and drugs
are linked to poverty and discrimination among populations
who are largely locked out of the workforce.
AIDS shouldn't reflect negatively on anyone's ethnicity or
sexual preference any more than low incomes, socioeconomic
status or SAT scores. And risky sexual behavior shouldn't
make any AIDS sufferer any less deserving of sympathy than
people who smoke or don't wear motorcycle helmets or seat
belts. Most infected today had no idea of the risk involved
at the time they were infected. I view gay bashing and AIDS
discrimination as being just as stupid as the other kinds of
idiocy people use to justify inflicting cruelties and
injustices on each other.
AIDS isn't that easy to get, and if you're not in a high
risk group, you're just not likely to get it. While AIDS has
devastated the gay community, AIDS afflicts less than 1/20
of one percent of the entire population, and only 1/2
percent has the virus with no symptoms. The only reliable
way to get the virus is to share needles or have sex with
another person with the virus without a condom. You can't
get it from toilet seats, shaking hands, or breathing the
air. So there's no need to panic unless you're planning on
doing high risk activities, in which case, you'd better
shape up fast.
I think it's pretty damn irresponsible to for those who
claim to be in charge of the AIDS effort to hide the major
causes of the spread of the disease just because of their
activist politics. It's one heck of a way to run social
6
policy by automatically junking any facts that can be judged
to be offensive to anybody, and even East Europe is junking
this philosophy. AIDS is the worst thing to ever hit the gay
community and Africa, and it will devastate the low income
minority communities, and wreak havoc with our health system
if we don't get our heads out of the sand and stop
pretending that we can solve the AIDS crisis through
politics alone, and lying that everybody is going to get it
equally. A vaccine or cure may be a decade away. In the
meantime, it will take science, objective research, and an
unbelievable amount of good old-fashioned doing-what-you're-
told to stem this epidemic.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Arthur Hu: Neoconservative Asian-Am Humanist and Proud of It |
| Vital Stats: 32, Am-Born, MIT-educated software engineer |
| Heros: Mark Twain, Ben Franklin, Thomas Sowell, Glen Loury |
| Favorite hobby: Sacred Cow Tipping |
| Email: @well.sf.ca.us WorkFone: 408-432-1727 x7130 |
| Views not represent my those of my race, gender, or species |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+edhall%rand.org@usc.edu (Ed Hall) (07/07/90)
Perhaps Mr. Hu should check out the HIV infection rate in Bankok. His figures may well be true for Asian-Americans, but there are parts of East Asia where the AIDS epidemic is in full swing. -Ed Hall edhall@rand.org
timlee@lentil.Berkeley.EDU@ (07/11/90)
apple!well.sf.ca.us!well!arthurhu@uunet.UU.NET (Arthur Ta-Chuan Hu) writes: |Arthur Hu |Asian Week | |To the USENET community: Here's a column I had published in Asian Week |in San Francisco, and the response. Please email any comments on Asians, |AIDS, and gay Asians. | |Asians and AIDS | |I've got more bad news for those who think that, as people |of color, Asians must be worse off than whites. Asians may |be the fastest growing group for AIDS, but what nobody will |say is the fact that they're still by far the least likely |group to get it, or why that is. Asians got 23% of the AIDS |prevention funds in 1990 in San Francisco. That might be in |line with the 23% Asian population in 1980, but with the |population probably closer now to 28%, Asians were only 3% |of cases, and half of those were Filipino. But AIDS does not discriminate by race. Once you are exposed, it doesn't matter what race you are. You can't just feel safe because others who look like you aren't getting it. If you practice unsafe sex or drug needle sharing, you are still at high risk, regardless of skin color.