Kanye West Hurricane Katrina. Rap star attacks Bush at benefit. Hip-hop star Kanye West criticised President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina at a televised benefit concert in New York on Friday.
The show, which raised funds for relief efforts, featured Leonardo DiCaprio, Richard Gere, Glenn Close, Harry Connick Jr and Wynton Marsalis. But West told the audience: "George Bush doesn't care about black people. " The comment went out live on the US east coast, but was cut from a taped version seen on the west coast. West also claimed the US was not set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible". Rnel West: Hurricane aftermath showed Darwinism in action.
It takes something as big as Hurricane Katrina and the misery we saw among the poor black people of New Orleans to get America to focus on race and poverty.
It happens about once every 30 or 40 years. What we saw unfold in the days after the hurricane was the most naked manifestation of conservative social policy towards the poor, where the message for decades has been: 'You are on your own'.