Our discussion about the Tuskegee experiment reminded me of a movie that aired on Lifetime back in 2004 "She's Too Young." It's about three 14 year old high school freshman girls who contract syphilis. Their high school ends up experiencing a syphilis epidemic, and there is one 16 year old boy identified as the main spreader of the disease. He does not appreciate the serious nature of syphilis, refuses to be tested and even mocks those who undergo testing. I thought it was pretty sad when one girl tells her friends she has syphilis and they say, "People still get that?" Yes, they do! As if the images of what can happen to you if syphilis goes untreated isn't enough, and they have no idea how lucky they are to have penicillin to cure them.
I thought Angela's theory about Tuskegee and the Negro Project was a really interesting observation: It lasted longer than the Negro Project because they were trying to see if syphilis would wipe out the African American race. This seems like a likely possibility - I would call it an attempt at an underhanded genocide.
- Josh Steffen
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