According to recent estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are more than one million HIV-positive people in the United States. Deaths associated with AIDS number more than 18,000 a year, while 56,300 new HIV cases are reported annually.
Since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1970s, millions have been infected and died. In 2010, more than 34 million worldwide were living with the disease, and despite significant resources dedicated to prevention, thousands more become infected every day. Prevalence varies significantly by country, from estimates of less than 0.1% in Bangladesh, Egypt and Japan to more than 23% in Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.
In the first half of the 20th century, a convergence of social attitudes, market forces and government policy in the United States contributed to significant increases in racial segregation. While segregation continues to be seen as a significant problem, a 2012 analysis of historical U.S. Census data indicates that racial separation has diminished significantly since the 1960s.
For millions of Americans, issues of racial and ethnic identification are frequently complicated, a legacy of the country’s endless waves of immigration as well as its long history of slavery and expansion into Native American lands across the continent.
The fatal shooting of teenager Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, and the subsequent protests and police actions, has prompted an outpouring of analysis and opinion about the issue of race in America, as well as law enforcement behavior.
From the Scholars Strategy Network, written by Daniel A. Smith, University of Florida
As issues of crime and race again came into the national spotlight during the 1990s, many social scientists and communications scholars sought to study the portrayal of racial minorities within news media. Numerous studies documented the high rate at which persons of color were typically portrayed as violent or dangerous in newspapers and television.
