Kanye West rips Bush at hurricane aid show
Frazier Moore

WASHINGTON—Rapper Kanye West surprised viewers of an NBC benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims on Friday by accusing President George W. Bush of racism.
“George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” West said from New York during the show aired live on the East Coast on NBC, MSNBC, CNBC and Pax, just before cameras cut away to comedian Chris Tucker.
West, who is black, suggested moments earlier that delays in providing relief to survivors of the hurricane that hit the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday and flooded New Orleans were deliberate. He said America was set up “to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible.” The Grammy award-winning singer, who was paired with comedian Mike Myers, also said in what NBC described as unscripted remarks, “We already realized 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.