Undercurrents of Race and Class

There's so much going on that I've missed a lot and I'm late on more. By now I'm sure everyone's heard (or heard about) Kanye West's statement on NBC's concert for hurricane victims on Friday night. The week after Time magazine featured him on its cover and in the article "Why You Can't Ignore Kanye," the rapper gave us another reason not to be ignored. Impromptu on live national TV, Kanye criticized the relief effort and said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Lisa de Moraes has the full transcript, and as usual, Crooks and Liars has the video. NBC cut out the Bush statement for the Mountain and Pacific time zones but left the remainder of his statement.

On Monday, Kanye's sentiments were echoed by Bob Herbert in the NYTimes. After going through a litany of human suffering and devastation, Herbert minced no words:

Old, critically ill people were left to soil themselves and in some cases die like stray animals on the floor of an airport triage center. For days the president of the United States didn't seem to notice.

He would have noticed if the majority of these stricken folks had been white and prosperous. But they weren't. Most were black and poor, and thus, to the George W. Bush administration, still invisible.