
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 8, 1990                   TAG: 9005080525
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AIDS NO RESPECTER OF ONE'S COLOR

KHALLID Abdul Muhammad, special assistant to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, said during his talk at Virginia Tech that the AIDS virus "didn't come from a green monkey. It came from a white monkey with a suit and lab coat."

Of course, the implication is that white scientists infected Africa with AIDS to kill off black people. This seems to be a popular idea among people like Khallid. There is absolutely no truth or logic involved. If you know anything about diseases, and are not completely blinded by hatred and bigotry, you realize that throughout history, viruses or bacteria have evolved to a point where they were able to become infectious, and killed off thousands of people over a short time.

Regardless of color, you are at extremely low risk of contracting AIDS unless you fall into certain high-risk groups. As of 1988, homosexual or bisexual men and intravenous drug users accounted for 89 percent of all adult cases of AIDS in this country. AIDS infects people everywhere; it doesn't matter if you're black, white, red, green or blue. (Read "The International Epidemiology of AIDS," October 1988 Scientific American).

As a graduate student at Virginia Tech, I wish some of the black student leaders would explain why this man was allowed to come here. After reading the news article, I couldn't help but think how much his lecture sounded like the speeches Adolf Hitler made in Nazi Germany. What if some group at Tech wanted to sponsor a visit from the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan? There would be a huge protest, and I would likely be one of the protesters.

\ DAVE JOHNSON\ BLACKSBURG

by CNB