ABSTRACT
Racial/ethnic subordination is a major sociohistorical fact in the United States and many other countries. Its definition and terminology are controversial, and cannot be fully resolved here. Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) seroprevalence is greater in some racially/ethnically subordinated groups in the United States than among whites. Black Latinos who are not drug injectors also seem to face double minority status. The existence of this system of racial/ethnic stratification, then, and its interaction with class society, is a social fact that seems to encourage the spread of HIV. It is an obstacle to efforts to reduce the spread of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome and, indeed, to ameliorate its effects upon those who themselves become infected or whose family members or friends become infected. In a study of residential segregation, Denton and Massey found that Black Hispanics are segregated from other Hispanics, from Anglos, and from non-Hispanic blacks.
