DTWOF: The Blog

That’s what rapper Kanye West said on the NBC hurricane benefit concert Friday night. This was a departure from the approved script, and his comments were axed from the west coast broadcast, but to anyone who wasn’t stranded on a desert island last week, or similarly insulated from reality, like, say, by being the homeland security secretary or the Director of FEMA, West was only stating the obvious. It was interesting to watch the national conversation evolve during the week. First no one mentioned the fact that the people abandoned in New Orleans were overwhelmingly African-American. Then gradually there was an acknowledgment that class was a factor—people were stranded because they had no cars or other resources to get out of town. Then by the end of the week, race started being mentioned openly in the mainstream media. I haven’t been able to bring myself to monitor Fox News, but Frank Rich reports that even Bill O’Reilly was forced to acknowledge the truth by Thursday night. Unfortunately, we can’t blame this horrific social collapse solely on George Bush. We live in a deeply racist society, and openly acknowledging that fact is the first step toward changing it. I know we all have quantum-particle-sized attention spans these days, but I don’t think the Republicans will manage to sweep the shameful Katrina fallout under the rug anytime soon. Not even with Bush’s ridiculous distraction ploy of nominating of John Roberts for chief justice.