I'm white, and got the disease when I was young and very fit, working in the soil in the San Joachim Valley, in California, where the disease is common. The pneumonia associated with it almost killed me, left me hospitalized for a month, and permanently and severely damaged my lungs. I had been a national-class marathon runner before that, in the late '50s. It does affect non-whites differently, but they are not by any means the exclusive victims of the disease.