Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Ye vs Bush2

According to former President Bush, the worst moment of his presidency came when Kayne West uttered his unscripted tirade against the president during a Hurricane Katrina fundraising effort.

It was during the moment when Ye remarked that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” which caused me to do a spit-take and caused Mike Myers to shit his pants on live television.



As awesome as that moment was, the fact that it ranks as the worst moment of his presidency is curious. I’m reminded of my own mantra that if you begin a sentence with “I’m not a racist but…” and then follow it with your own warped take on race, then you are indeed a racist.

The fact that a rap artist who is notorious for creating controversy by saying/doing a lot of stupid things at the spur of the moment created such a lasting impact on the former leader of the free world, speaks volumes to me.

It makes me think that George Bush indeed, does not care about black people.
Could there be any other explanation?

I completely understand that if you believe that you feel you’re not racist and someone comes up and says “You’re racist!” you immediately get defensive and want to make a comment contrary to it.

But if the offending comment comes at the hand of an attention-seeking performer who is speaking from unconfirmed perception, then one should be able to see that the person is ill-advised to make such a broad statement and have enough temerity to argue against such falsehoods.

They then should be able to move along, particularly a president who must face all sorts of criticism-both reality based and irrational ones-on a never-ending basis.
Not George. He’s clearly fixated on this one off-the-wall comment without recognizing that the source is completely irrelevant to the topic.

So if he’s still dwelling on it, it makes me consider that George Bush really does have issues with black people and that anyone who suggests that he might have issues with people of color, a weird defensive stance gets triggers within him, a fear that has him considering that others recognize his hidden racism.

Another theory might be that Bush has an obsessive personality that prompts an unhealthy attention towards anyone that he perceives as a threat.

It certainly was the case with Saddam Hussein. He publically stated that Hussein threatened his “daddy” which translated into a war that was started under the guise of protecting America’s security.

Could it be that the war with Iraq was triggered by a verbal threat from an alientated dictator?

Could it be that similar obsessions on the perception of racism triggered these feelings of defensiveness, to the point where he’s still troubled by it today?
As callused as Bush’s response (or lack thereof) to Katrina was, there wasn’t anything that blatantly suggested racism. On the surface, it seemed that it was yet another example of this inept president bungling yet another disaster, thanks in large-part to an administration that was focused on skull fucking their ideology on the American people instead of utilizing the time needed to tackle the disaster head on.

Kayne or anyone else is welcome to imply that this foot-dragging is the result of racism, but that doesn’t mean it’s true and, more importantly, it doesn’t mean that you should define that kind of comment as the “worst moment of your presidency.”

One would think that every human life lost on 9/11, or the soldiers and innocent civilians who perished as a result of the two wars that came after the attack would rank as a lower moment for the president than any misguided comment from a rap star.

So does the hurt result from the pointed jab of Kanye West’s verbal sucker-punch, or is the sting the result of the truth smacking back at Bush’s white guilt

4 comments:

Cousin J said...

Seems Kanye has seen the light after being accused of being a racist himself. See Pitchfork article:

http://pitchfork.com/news/40598-kanye-extends-olive-branch-to-george-w-bush/

Cousin J said...

Also, that video gets more hilarious every time I watch it.

pena said...

I'd forgotten how awesome that video was too. He starts out as a nervous, rambling man that seems to know they're going to pull the plug on him if he doesn't hurryupandsaywhathewantstosayrightnow. Then Myers picks up on the teleprompter and thinks he can right the ship. I like how he politely nods during Ye's rant and seems to think "If I just stick to the script, nobody will notice this trainwreck." Then West lays the bomb, prompting the best "Oh, Fuck me!" look in years from Myers.

Kiko Jones said...

Good points, Mr. T.

In my biased, and highly cynical opinion the Bush administration's response to Katrina seemed more like a combination of inept bungling AND political partisanship--NOLA ain't no GOP stronghold--than racism. I don't think the lag time would've been as evident had the disaster affected a, say, Texas town in the same maner as NOLA. But that's just me.