White People and Their Conspiracy Theories

There are, in America, a certain number of African-Americans who believe conspiracy theories about the AIDS virus. It's not a majority by any stretch, but it is a not insignificant amount and something that has real and serious damaging effects on matters of public health and keeping our most vulnerable populations safe from disease.

Polling data which seems to show a measurable amount of Black support for such conspiracies are often trotted out as proof of their inferior status as politically rational creatures. But White people have their conspiracies too, and I highly suspect we'll be seeing the same standard applied. Dave Weigel number crunched a recent poll indicating that possibly over 70% of Southern Whites harbor doubts about Barack Obama's citizenship. That's an unbelievably huge number for something that by all rights should be in "we didn't land on the moon" territory.