George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People

The worst moment of your presidency? Really?

For the sake of clarification: "Bush doesn't care about black people" is a little different statement than "Bush is a racist."

You can not care about a group of people without actually holding animosity for that group. I don't care about Kenny G's fans, but that doesn't make me racist towards them, does it? I certainly don't hate Kenny G's fans. I just don't care about them as much as I care about some other groups. Maybe, if the situation arose, I wouldn't do as much for them if they needed assistance.  

The power of Kanye's initial emotional statement, "Bush doesn't care about black people" lies in apathy, not racism per se. It was, at the time of Katrina and remains, difficult to imagine a predominately white city garnering the same lack of urgency New Orleans received in the first days of the disaster. Is a lack of urgency or marginal interest really racist? What if you didn't devote your full attention in an emergency to a group that didn't help your electoral chances? Would that be racist?

"George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" is a reflection of conservative thought. Conservatives on the whole seem unable to extend their concern to groups that don't "look" like them. If you are poor-er, black-er, latino-er, gay-er, foreign-er, than most conservatives you will not gain their favor. Conservatives don't care about poor people. Conservatives don't care about gay people. And yes, Conservatives don't care about  black people either.

Of course all of this is made more absurd by the fact that somehow GW thinks what Kanye said was the worst moment of his 8 year debacle. Worse than seeing bodies floating in New Orleans? Worse than bodies in Iraq? Afghanistan? Worse than economic collapse? Worse than unemployment skyrocketing?

. . . Oh well. Sphere: Related Content