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The Definitive History Of 'George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People'
....
"Yo, I'm going to ad-lib a little bit," West later recalled telling Myers just before they took the stage at 30 Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan. The duo stepped in front of the camera. Then Myers, hands behind his back, launched into the lines streaming down the teleprompter.
....
"I hate the way they portray us in the media," he said. "If you see a black family, it says, 'They're looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.' And you know that it's been five days because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite -- because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before, even giving a donation. So now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what's, what is the biggest amount I can give, and, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help with the set-up, the way America is set up to help the, the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, this is -- Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us."
At that moment, Radice noticed something odd. Until then, he had heard celebrities chattering in the background throughout the show. But now all the famous people had gone quiet. All eyes were fixed on West.
....
"'George Bush doesn't care about black people' was my first political memory," Julia Craven, now a 22-year-old staff reporter for The Huffington Post, wrote in an email. "I didn't really understand the nuances behind what Kanye meant by that, but I knew that historically white people didn't care about black people (mostly because I'm from the south). So it made sense. It was funny more than anything else, though. It never crossed my mind that that was the beginning of Kanye's politicizing or that we'd look back on Katrina and really understand how spot on that critique was. But I was 12."
....
At the time, Lawrence lived up the street from the Astrodome, where thousands of New Orleans evacuees would come to find shelter.
"I remember driving home one night and seeing a line of, I kid you not, about 10,000 people that were just getting off the buses from Katrina. ... You could smell all they had gone through for miles in the air. You could smell it," he said. "[Katrina victims] didn't have the dollars to wield to influence a Bush or to influence even their local politicians to move in the way that a Kanye West could get them to move."
"Hearing Kanye West say what he said in 2005 -- a lot of us as young people felt empowered," Lawrence said. "West in many ways became a champion for us by speaking out nationally in that way."
....
When people think back to West's telethon moment, the first thing that comes to mind is his seven-word indictment of the sitting president, a stark memory of one of the world's most famous artists accusing its most powerful man of racism. Less remembered are the 200-or-so words that came before that -- words targeted not at Bush, but at the media: "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says, 'They're looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.'"
....
....
Ten years on and nearly two terms removed from Bush's presidency, it's the criticism of the media that hits home for black Americans. Half of black men and women in the August poll agreed that Bush didn't care about black people, but two-thirds agreed that the media portray black and white moments of crisis differently.
....
HuffPo
"Yo, I'm going to ad-lib a little bit," West later recalled telling Myers just before they took the stage at 30 Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan. The duo stepped in front of the camera. Then Myers, hands behind his back, launched into the lines streaming down the teleprompter.
....
"I hate the way they portray us in the media," he said. "If you see a black family, it says, 'They're looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.' And you know that it's been five days because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite -- because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before, even giving a donation. So now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what's, what is the biggest amount I can give, and, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help with the set-up, the way America is set up to help the, the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, this is -- Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us."
At that moment, Radice noticed something odd. Until then, he had heard celebrities chattering in the background throughout the show. But now all the famous people had gone quiet. All eyes were fixed on West.
....
"'George Bush doesn't care about black people' was my first political memory," Julia Craven, now a 22-year-old staff reporter for The Huffington Post, wrote in an email. "I didn't really understand the nuances behind what Kanye meant by that, but I knew that historically white people didn't care about black people (mostly because I'm from the south). So it made sense. It was funny more than anything else, though. It never crossed my mind that that was the beginning of Kanye's politicizing or that we'd look back on Katrina and really understand how spot on that critique was. But I was 12."
....
At the time, Lawrence lived up the street from the Astrodome, where thousands of New Orleans evacuees would come to find shelter.
"I remember driving home one night and seeing a line of, I kid you not, about 10,000 people that were just getting off the buses from Katrina. ... You could smell all they had gone through for miles in the air. You could smell it," he said. "[Katrina victims] didn't have the dollars to wield to influence a Bush or to influence even their local politicians to move in the way that a Kanye West could get them to move."
"Hearing Kanye West say what he said in 2005 -- a lot of us as young people felt empowered," Lawrence said. "West in many ways became a champion for us by speaking out nationally in that way."
....
When people think back to West's telethon moment, the first thing that comes to mind is his seven-word indictment of the sitting president, a stark memory of one of the world's most famous artists accusing its most powerful man of racism. Less remembered are the 200-or-so words that came before that -- words targeted not at Bush, but at the media: "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says, 'They're looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.'"
....
....
Ten years on and nearly two terms removed from Bush's presidency, it's the criticism of the media that hits home for black Americans. Half of black men and women in the August poll agreed that Bush didn't care about black people, but two-thirds agreed that the media portray black and white moments of crisis differently.
....
HuffPo
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