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" They portray us in the media...
We see a black family that says they're looting......
We see a white family it says they're looking for food.....
And you know it's been five days because most of the people ARE black...
And even for me to complain about ...I would be a hypocrite becuase 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.....and just to imagine if I was down there and those are MY people down there....with the setup the way America is setup to help the uh...uhm..poor, the black people the less well-off as slow as possible, I mean...this is...Red Cross is doing everything they can...we...we already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war, right now, fighting another way, and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us.
George Bush doesn't care about black people."
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how can a remark about an individual and his basis for decsionmaking be "racist mentality"? yes, it may be ignorance, but that isn't necessarily racism.
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1) West appears to offer a criticism of the media for characterizing the actions of whites and blacks differently. In the days immediately after the hurricane, I happened to agree that some (perhaps many) of the still photographs as well as some of the video clips and live reporting that I saw characerized acts (largely by African-Americans) as looting when the pictures themselves showed people carrying out food and drink. In my own mind, I noticed that the reports of looting did not seem to synch up well with the pictures or video being presented. Since then, I have seen other still pictures and videos and read extensive reporting that actions that can only be characterized as "looting" were in fact going on.
2) Though he doesn't have the vocabulary to express it, West appears to assert that the government-led relief effort ("the setup") is designed to get aid to black people as slowly as possible. He does not get an opportunity to elaborate on this wild accusation, but the clear inference is that the government's intent is to let black people suffer. You can write it off to West's inarticulateness, or his ignorance or the pressure of the moment, but the words on the page in black and white leave no wiggle room.
3) He makes the silly (and easily refuted) accusation that National Guard troop deployment in Iraq affected response capability.
4) He wildly accuses that they (THEY--i.e., the white establishment) have given them (THEM--i.e., in large part white guardsmen)permission to go down and shoot us (US, i.e. black people).
5) He accuses George Bush of not caring about black people.
West makes a series of racially-charged, racially-inflammatory accusations, against not just George Bush, but against the government and by extension American society in general saying that the predominantly white American society does not care about the suffering of black people, that in fact, they intentionally allow black people to suffer.
He further alleges that the government (again representative of the interests of predominantly white America) has sent troops down to shoot "us"--i.e., predominantly black looters, ignoring that: 1) any looter, white or black, is breaking the law; 2) many of the looters are armed, with numerous reports of shots being fired against police and rescue workers.
I suppose that an apologist in denial could try to argue that making wild, irresponsible, irrational, unfounded, untrue, ignorant, racially-charged, racially-inflammatory remarks in an attempt to pit "US" against "THEM" doesn't represent a racist mentality; that it only represents an alternative point of view, different perhaps from one's own, but not "racist" in the classic sense.
I profoundly disagree.
When racist political figures like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters et al make similar accusations to try to gain political advantage by exploiting a natural disaster, a social tragedy and human suffering they are racists. So too is an ignorant, uneducated, barely literate fool like West is a racist when he uses racially-inflammatory rhetoric as he did in the remarks above. Just because it's unfathomable what he was trying to accomplish by making his remarks in the context of a relief benefit doesn't make his remarks any less lunatic, offensive or racist.
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I haven't seen anything from kanye that says he is [a racist] either.
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Check again.