KANYE WEST FORGETS TO BE MEALY-MOUTHED ON LIVE TV

NBC's glittering telethon to help those hit by Katrina got thrown a little off course when Kanye West forgot these occasions are meant to allow CEOs of large corporations to parade about holding big cheques, and decided to comment on the pisspoor response to the disaster. NBC cut his remarks from the West Coast broadcast, and tried to cut away from his unscripted attack on George Bush, but by then it was a little too late:

"George Bush doesn't care about black people... I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food."

NBC was so paniced about this they dragged Chris Tucker back onscreen instead (and it says a lot when he's seen as being the safe pair of hands) and then issued a even more panicky statement:

"It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists and the generosity of millions of Americans are overshadowed by one person's opinion."

On the other hand, wouldn't it be scandalous if all the good work that needs to be done is allowed to drown out a debate that really needs to be had? For what it's worth, we half agree with West - the US media we've seen certainly did portray black people as borderline criminal when most were just doing what they needed to do as survive, and the focus of the likes of Fox on looting and "lawlessness" seemed to persuade the few authorities left in New Orleans that they should put more effort into protecting buildings than rescuing people. But we don't think that Bush doesn't care about the people in the Superdome because they're black - he doesn't care about the poor regardless of what colour they are.

(To be fair, in a less-well reported segment of his statement, West did suggest there was an economic element here, too:

[He] said America is set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible.")



Of course, the blogpile is buzzing - the sort of people who treat Matt Drudge as an unimpeachable news source are fuming with pooly-spelled rage - like the aptly-named Living In The Past (they don't say how far in the past, but we're guessing back before that nasty Rosa Parks spoiled everything):

Hey Kanye West, You are nothing but a USER………The IDIOT just had to use the Funding Raising effort to sneak in comments about The Irag War. Kanye, your a LOSER………

That post is exactly as we found it - we presume The Irag war is the one that Bush has planned once he's finished with Iraq and Iran. It's true, Kanye does make an oblique reference to Iraq - although he doesn't actually sound critical, saying something along the lines of "we understand the people who could help are elsewhere, fighting another war..." - to us, that would seem to be an accurate summation of part of the problem of logistics rather than a condemnation of George's Middle East adventurism. But then there is currently an enormous rawness amongst the illiberal blogs at any attempt to even suggest that there might be something worthwhile in considering the current events on the Gulf Coast in the context of the massive financial and human commitment made in that other Gulf (and, incidently, in the context of global warming at all.)

The Crossfader saw West's remarks as a vital part of, erm, "keeping it gangsta":

Let’s face it. You ain’t gangsta unless you can slap the President on network television.

We'd say less gangsta, more "first step in 2016 presidential campaign."

RickSpeak isn't thinking of Presidents - this is little more than the first scent of a coming revolution:

[America] is being preyed upon by opportunists who strike with both subtlety and bluntness. Once the subtlety is gone, the revolution will have begun. We are close to the end of subtlety.

You'll note that it's West who is considered to be displaying the lack of subtelty here, and not Bush, with his gurning, grinning press conferences while people are dying. We're still not sure why Bush felt his "enjoyed myself a little too much" comments last night were appropriate; certainly, Kanye has done Bush a favour by giving this for people to latch onto rather than Bush's bizzare claim on live TV yesterday evening that "I am satisified with the response."

Getting a little confused is Everything Between, which can't see the difference between criticising a politician and taking a stand against homophobia:

Kanye says “Bush doesn’t care about black people” aside Mike Meyers in this segment on NBC’s Katrina fundraising extravaganza. But they censored him on the later West Coast broadcasts! And he’s the one who just last week called for all rappers to stop criticizing gays.

Er... yes, he did... and...?

Resurrection Song is upset that someone allowed the real world to intrude on the telethon world:

In a moment when he should have been thanking people for their generosity, asking people to do even more, and, in general, being appreciative of the fact that people from around the world are rising to the task that hurricane Katrina left us, Kanye West instead chose to say some seriously nasty, unfounded things

Yes, dammit - have we learned nothing from years of fundraisers? People aren't meant to be angry, and demanding decent treatment as right on a telethon - they're meant to restrict themselves to slots on preshot videos, and perhaps the odd tearful spot of gratitude. Heaven forbid that the authentic voice of the people who are supposed to be at the centre of the event actually makes to air.


You can download the moment for yourself.

music kanye west kanye telethon katrina hurricane katrina