| AIDS is "such a political issue" because it's easier for westernized cultures to discuss in the media than the torture, kilings, starvation, etc. of other, less fortunate cultures. Although the media rarely comes out and says it, this is true because members of westernized cultures tend to view AIDS as a horrible illness, yes, but one that you contract through pure stupidity. At this point, it is fair to assume that nearly 75% of the world's population over the age of 13 knows how AIDS in transmitted. If you get AIDS, it's because you stupidly didn't use a condom or shared someone's needle, most of the time. Occasionally, it's tragic, such as infected blood transfusions or some psycho sticking people with a needle at gas stations.
We make AIDS such an issue in part because it's easier to blame AIDS for the massive death toll and orphaned children in Africa, rather than blaming the Africans themselves. How harsh would it seem to say, as a comparatively well-off American citizen, that the Africans that are dying en masse have no one to blame but themselves? While it may be true, it isn't the fashionable attitude to have in the westernized press.
It's easier, also, to talk about AIDS, which seems so easy an epidemic to halt, than to talk about the murder and starvation of millions of people in Africa (and around the world, for that matter), because murder doesn't seem to be something that the average citizen could do anything about and therefore they don't want to know about it (ignorance is bliss), and starvation is one of thsoe problems that thousands of people Do fight to combat, but it's such a large problem and so continuous, so ongoing in spite of efforts to halt it, that the press and the viewing/listening public tend to think of starvation/world hunger as an issue that's already been beat to death, an issue that used to be trendy, but now it's trendier to talk about AIDS.
It's easy to say "Let's stop the AIDS epidemic" when you're, in fact, a little apathetic about it, because you believe that it cannot affect you. In all likelihood, if you take the precautions you know you Should, it Won't affect you. So it's easy to say, "Oh, those poor, poor, people, look at them all getting sick and dying, let's take pity on them, let's find someone to blame, let's make sure that this latest hot-button issue works for us and our own personal cause in some way."
On that note, does anyone think that this extremem interest and politicization of the AIDS epidemic has anything to do with the ever-increasing recognition, acceptance, and celebrity-like power of the American homosexual? |