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Artist News
Kanye West responds to George Bush
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 5 November 2010
Kanye West has responded to George W Bush’s recent comments regarding the rapper’s claim that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” during a telethon for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Bush has said West’s diss was one of the lowest moments of his presidency.
Responding, the rapper has told fans he now feels compassion for George, likening the criticism the former President received during the aftermath of Katrina to that West himself had hurled at him after he ruined Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at last year’s MTV Video Music Awards. Yes Kanye, they’re exactly the same.
As previously reported, speaking to Matt Lauer on NBC (the same network that aired the fundraiser where Kanye dissed the President), Bush said this week: “He called me a racist … I didn’t appreciate it then. I don’t appreciate it now. It’s one thing to say: ‘I don’t appreciate the way he’s handled his business’. It’s another thing to say: ‘This man’s a racist’. I resent it, it’s not true, and it was one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency … My record was strong, I felt, when it came to race relations and giving people a chance. And it was a disgusting moment”.
In an interview on Houston’s Hot 97.9 The Boxx radio station, West said yesterday: “I can understand the way he feels to be accused of being a racist in a way, because the same thing happened to me [after the Taylor Swift thing]. With both situations, it was a lack of compassion that America saw”.
He rambled on: “With him, it was lack of compassion, not taking the time to rush down to New Orleans. With me it was lack of compassion, cutting someone off in their moment. But nonetheless, I think we’re all quick to pull a race card in America. And now I’m more open, and the poetic justice I feel to have gone through the same thing as him. And I really connect with him on a humanitarian level, because the next morning, when he felt that, I felt that too”.
