You know, during the "Pastor Whose Name Used to Rhyme with 'Light,' But Now Rhymes with 'Lit'" controversy, we heard about the outlandish notion that African Americans would actually believe that the government created the HIV/AIDS virus to wipe out the black population in this country. 

We brought up the infamous (although little remembered or known outside the black community) Tuskegee Institute Syphylis Experiment, that 40-year long (1932 to 1972) nightmare of black men being purposefully and deliberately infected with syphylis without their consent to temper some of the "plausible deniability" of the government. 

The media tried hard to paint even blacker (and more dangerously "unpatriotic and stupid") the black folks who gave that theory even a passing nod at being remotely possible. Even a guy with fancy Harvard degree -- no, not Obama -- but Dr. Leonard Horowitz is a "crackpot" and "wild-eyed conspiracy theorist."
 
Just an observation here, one that I know you'll disagree with vehemently, but is there a double-standard at work? Are black Americans less entitled to "non-mainstream" ideas than our white counter-parts? 

1. Fluoridated water is a communist plot.
In the 1950s and 60s, as the benefits of fluoride in preventing tooth decay became accepted, and local governments started pushing to change water treatment to add fluoride. White politicians, the John Birch Society, anti-communists and other "leaders" promoted the idea that fluoridation was bad for Americaand fought successfully in many communities to keep it out the water supply. (The first step onto the slippery slope of "socialized medicine.")

2. Silver amalgam fillings cause "insert problem name here."
Would black people be taken seriously if they claimed these fillings cause cancer, mercury poisoning, and other illnesses; if they demanded to have the fillings removed because they created chronic health issues, and created a rather lucrative dental industry to do it?

3. Childhood vaccinations cause epilepsy and autism.
Would black people be taken seriously if they proposed that giving their children immunization to designed prevent childhood disease created learning disabilities, autism, epilepsy or worse? If they added it was control black people and keep them from getting too "intelligent" would send you over the cliff, I'm sure, but if they claimed it was the leading cause of ADHD?

4. Alar is a dangerous food additive.
No less an expert that Meryl Streep explained the dangers of alar sprayed on fruit like apples. Despite the fact that you would have to eat a box-load of apples (or have that equivalent of the compound given to you each and every day) to ingest an amount capable of causing cancer, the issue gained widespread media attention in 1989. Would the same attention have been paid if Cicely Tyson had sounded the alarm?

5. Sitting too close to the TV can make you go blind, and irradiate you, causing sterilization.
Or so we have been told by parents. CRTs were once thought to emit vast quantities of radiation, too. But reasonable folks at the FDA and NIH, say no. But would you believe it was harmless if the good news came from researchers at Howard University (an Historically Black College or University, HBCU) and not from the good folks up the road at Johns Hopkins?

6. Getting a transfusion or organs donated by a black person will turn a white person "black."
A 2002 PBS documentary looked at the history of blood in current society and its cultural and historical significance. In the second part of a four-part series, it examines blood during war times and demonstrates how, through the necessity of providing soldiers with blood on battlefronts, the logistics of storing and transporting blood were improved. The second hour also details the dark side of blood, including the Nazis’ use of blood-type to further their racist policies and the segregation of the US blood supply by race. Charles Drew, MD, a prominent African-American expert in blood, who ran the very successful Plasma for Britain campaign but was barred from donating his own blood, is an example of how blood policy can be intricately connected to social policies of the times.

So, are black Americans really that different than our white counterparts when it comes believing outlandish, conspiracy-based and irrational theories? Or are you (the dominant culture) more likely to give yourselves a pass when it comes to the crackpot calling the kettle black?