US rapper Kanye West critisised George Bush on live TV on Saturday on an NBC show entitled A Concert For Hurricane Relief. West was presenting a 90-second segment with funnyman Mike Myers two-thirds through the show when, to Myers' suprise, the multi-million selling rapper went off script. In an apparent reference to this news story in The New York Times (link may have expired) West exclaimed:

"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."

West claimed that "they have given them permission to go down and shoot us", although he added that "the Red Cross is doing everything they can". After telling the audience that America is set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible", West was cut off after saying: "George Bush doesn't care about black people".

An NBC spokeswoman explained the crew were "instructed to listen for a curse word, and didn't realise [West] had gone off-script". A later stement added:

"Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks. It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion."

Although the rapper's comments went out live on the east coast, they were cut from the west coast version, broadcast three hours later. -FROM DIS

Kayne West is bang on right about this, do u think if this had happened in yokelville, texas, then bush would be dithering?, ultimately bush thought that the hurricane wouldnt have such a devastating effect. The fact that the authorities were more worried about shooting looters then feeding civilians does kind of sum up Bush tenure...

It takes a lot of guts to do that. See if you can track down the video, it really is incredible seeing Mike Myers panic as Kanye moves away from the teleprompter.

I think he's partly right. Bush doesn't care about POOR people, no matter what race. I think classism played a bigger role here than racism.

Your probably right Marianne, his administration is for the rich for sure.Just look at the middle class tax cuts. He should have lost the last election but people in America were scared into voting for him.

It is the poor who are the ones dying here, which in itself is a rather chilling (yet pretty predictable) insight into American culture. But the fact that the vast majority of the poor are black (watching the news, you hardly see a single white face in the refugee camps) implies an intrinsic racism on Americas behalf thats pretty frightening.

Its amazing that Kanye West has been censored for doing little more than pointing out the above two facts, which are glaringly self-evident, and extremely difficult to deny.

Bush's mother has been showing a similar level of compassion to the hurricane victims.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20050906...henation/120080

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them"



So, they don't mind living in starvation, dehydration and disease because.....hey, they were poor people anyway, so they won't mind?


*forehead-palm*

Haha. Firstly, the notion of "scripted comments" is pretty amusing. Secondly, why does the network have to agree with you to broadcast your opinion?