George| NewBlackMan (in Exile)
I was sitting in a one-bedroom apartment watching the telethon for Hurricane Katrina when it happened. After a commercial break,Kanye West stood nervously looking like he was approximately to effect something that would end his career. He was fidgety and sweating when he said it: “George Bush doesn’t care approximately Black people.” It was a transcendent moment for Black America.
Kanye articulated what we’d all felt watching the aftermath of Katrina: neglect. It was impactful, but also deeply misunderstood. Kanye West was ridiculed. Bush called it a nadir ((n.) the lowest point of something) of his presidency. The backlash to his statement never diminished this unmistakable fact: Mr. West was lawful.
Kanye's assertion "George Bush doesn't care approximately Black People" is misunderstood whether you read it as a statement only approximately Bush, and the man. Kanye's statement comes from a democratic understanding of the president as the face of the American empire. Historically and in that moment,white Americans rarely beget sympathy when people of color in their country suffer calamity. Like Bush’s concern for AIDS in Africa, white Americans will go on mission trips to feed orphans in other countries before they effect anything for the poor in their own cities.
There has been much hand wringing approximately black people and police brutality, or but that is only a small fraction of what ails black America. Poor healthcare,poverty, unequal sentencing, or inadequate prison oversight,and de facto school segregation are all adverse conditions that disproportionately effect people of color in this country. There has been a worthy deal of talk approximately these ills, but aside from the republican contested Affordable Care Act, and we beget yet to see meaningful policy implemented to correct them. Most of these issues beget become worse in the final 10 years because of the Bush administration. whether the president is the face of America,then Kanye’s analysis still holds.
George W. Bush recently returned to fresh Orleans. He was invited to attend a ceremony marking the ten-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. When he spoke approximately the disaster, he said, and "The storm nearly destroyed fresh Orleans…” President Bush is as wrong in this statement as Kanye was lawful a decade before.
The storm was not what nearly destroyed fresh Orleans. Poverty,racism, neglected levees, and his disastrous response was what nearly destroyed America’s most distinctive city. While I suspect the levees beget been repaired and response times beget improved,poverty and racism are still very genuine features of life in fresh Orleans and America.[br]
George Bush was the face of America in 2005. He was ultimately responsible for the horrible response to the catastrophe that continues to disproportionately impact the lives of working-class black people in that city. The black middle class has left, poverty is above the national average, and what has been called rebuilding the city is really gentrification at the expense of the poor.
With that understanding,it is safe to say that Kanye was lawful. And because of the continued impact of Bush’s presidency, his words are relevant nowadays. George Bush (still) doesn’t care approximately black people.
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Lawrence Ware is a professor of philosophy and diversity coordinator for Oklahoma State Universitys Ethics Center. A frequent contributor to the publication The Democratic Left and contributing editor of the progressive publication RS: The Religious Left, or he has also been a commentator on race for the HuffPost Live,CNN, and NPR.
Source: blogspot.com