Below is a clip from the upcoming CNN special “Black in America,” which I blogged about recently. Whoopi Goldberg talks about AIDS.“In this country,” she says, “it’s a pandemic.” Which means, if you have unprotected sex, “you’re going to get it.”
Then she hits us with some numbers:
“Fifty-fifty? No more,” says Whoopi. “One in two chances of getting it? Absolutely.”
Uhhh... Ms. Goldberg? A 50-50 chance is the same thing as a one-in-two chance.
Maybe this was a slip of the tongue... a temporary brain glitch. Except that Whoopi says it again.
She declares that getting AIDS from unprotected sex is more likely than getting pregnant. “You got a 50-50 shot with pregnant. You got a one-in-two chance of getting HIV.”
Holy crap. Whoopi Goldberg doesn’t know what “50-50” means!
And this is gonna be on CNN in a couple of weeks. In a program about the state of black America.
Shoot, Sherri Shepherd probably knows that 50-50 is the same as one-in-two. (Or maybe not.)
9 comments:
She's also failing epidemiology here - her pregnancy and HIV stats are completely wrong.
^ Yeah, there's that too.
Hmmm, looks like Whoopi's as skilled a social critic as she is a book critic. Which is to say, not very.
(I bought a novel ten years partly because she had a back cover blurb on it... oh my God it was bad. Written with passion, yes, but made no damn sense)
Oh no! This makes me sad. Seeing her up there next to Sherri Shepherd had me fooled into thinking she was a genius.
Wow.
That is the only thing that escapes my mouth.
Wow.
That reminds me - the comic strip "The Boondocks" once had an award, "The Whoopi", for "most embarassing black person."
I believe in one strip Whoopi herself got a "Whoopi" for her television show "Whoopi."
Typical. If you do not like the message, castigate the messenger.
I can't really blame Whoopi, even though she sounded like an idiot. I spent many years in research. If you heard half the nonsense that supposedly-educated people said when they talked about study results, you'd know why I got the heck out of research. And, don't let people start talking about statistical significance! My eyes would just roll back in my head. She should have just said, "No! I don't know what I'm talking about!"
yeah, whoopi's stats are wrong. yeah, celebrities constantly speak on what they don't know with authority. yeah, this is going to air and make her (and us, if you're that kind of negro) look bad. yeah, yeah, yeah.
here's the real point: the latest stats say that although it's a disease that affects everyone, it's decimating ethnic communities and it's the leading cause of death of african-american women between the ages of 25 to 34.
freaking everybody out with half-truths are not the answer - especially when what you say is heard around the world.
somebody needs to get her personal assistant some real information and prep her on it befpre the interview so when she decides to share her thoughts on camera, everyone can actually learn something.
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