STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

gruiz · Kenneth Cole

RE: Kanye West

bumblebee · Coach

hm, i stand by that. i think kanye west is a smart guy--he's demonstrated that through his music and in the way he usually carries himself. i think he made a bad decision in this instance, when he was swept up in the moment and his anger (and imho, at least a little bit motivated by self-interest). i have a personal pet-peeve about using another person's misfortune as a vehicle for self-aggrandizement in the form of "being swept up by passionate sympathy for the other"--only it's usually politicians who do it. so again, just my personal thoughts on it.

mclantern · Nine West

Personally I like Kanye West. He has always been political and not afraid to speak his mind. I think that he seized the oppurtunity and spoke from his heart. He would have been criticized no matter when he made those comments. I think that what he said became political the minute they decided not to air his comments on the west coast.
As far as Mr. Bush being racist I can't say. I do know that some of the comments that he has made in the past " I love my brown babies" have made some question his attitude. As a social worker I think the lack of caring has more to do with being poor then being of a different race.

blubirde · Chanel

mclantern wrote:

Personally I like Kanye West. He has always been political and not afraid to speak his mind. I think that he seized the oppurtunity and spoke from his heart. He would have been criticized no matter when he made those comments. I think that what he said became political the minute they decided not to air his comments on the west coast. As far as Mr. Bush being racist I can't say. I do know that some of the comments that he has made in the past " I love my brown babies" have made some question his attitude. As a social worker I think the lack of caring has more to do with being poor then being of a different race.

And let's not forget he's the only U.S. President in history to never attend a NAACP event (now I'm showing my poor memory - I can't remember what the yearly event is called). I'm also not saying he's racist but he's definitely insensitive to the plights of those less fortunate than himself.

And I agree with everything you said about Kanye West. I really don't think his comments had anything to do with his album dropping yesterday. There's no way he could have planned that timing.

ShanKel · Kenneth Cole

Just want to say that kanye West latest cd "Late Registration" didn't drop yesterday but on Aug 30th and went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts before he ever made those comments. I am not a big fan of K.West but I have to admit that his arogance makes it hard for me to believe that he did this for record sales. rap critics have been waiting for his sophomore album to be released and it is being regarded as the best hip-hop album in years. I bet he thinks he is so good at what he does, he doesn't need to go to such lengths to sell records.

halleybird · Hermes

mclantern wrote:

Personally I like Kanye West. He has always been political and not afraid to speak his mind. I think that he seized the oppurtunity and spoke from his heart. He would have been criticized no matter when he made those comments. I think that what he said became political the minute they decided not to air his comments on the west coast. As far as Mr. Bush being racist I can't say. I do know that some of the comments that he has made in the past " I love my brown babies" have made some question his attitude. As a social worker I think the lack of caring has more to do with being poor then being of a different race.

I think that is the biggest issue here. Although I don't think it was overt (I mean, hopefully no one said, "Oh, they're poor and African-American. Let's have dinner first and then we can do something about it." However, I DO think there has been a consistent neglect by this administration -- and, let's face it, by a lot of other Americans too -- of the poorest segment of our population.

That said, I think ShanKel is right about Kanye...he doesn't need the publicity. I think he chose an inappropriate time, but he did say what a lot of others were thinking. A lot of his music is about social standing/money in America, so I do buy that this was about more than publicity.

honey · Gucci

ShanKel wrote:

Just want to say that kanye West latest cd "Late Registration" didn't drop yesterday but on Aug 30th and went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts before he ever made those comments. I am not a big fan of K.West but I have to admit that his arogance makes it hard for me to believe that he did this for record sales. rap critics have been waiting for his sophomore album to be released and it is being regarded as the best hip-hop album in years. I bet he thinks he is so good at what he does, he doesn't need to go to such lengths to sell records.

i agree. i'm not the biggest kanye fan but he spoke what he felt and i admire that, even if the timing wasn't the best. i personally don't think bush is a racist (condi & colin would disprove that though now i feel like one of those "i have a colored tv" people), but i don't think he gives a rat's ass about the poor.

the thing is given this country's history it's hard to eliminate race from discussions of class/socio-economic status (imo that was a huge factor in the administration's response or lack of one). as much as i wish for a society where race doesn't matter in many ways i dread the day, b/c if we were to focus on the huge socio-economic disparities in this country. and that is a serious, serious problem.

blubirde · Chanel

honey wrote:

i'm not the biggest kanye fan but he spoke what he felt and i admire that, even if the timing wasn't the best. i personally don't think bush is a racist (condi & colin would disprove that though now i feel like one of those "i have a colored tv" people), but i don't think he gives a rat's ass about the poor. the thing is given this country's history it's hard to eliminate race from discussions of class/socio-economic status (imo that was a huge factor in the administration's response or lack of one). as much as i wish for a society where race doesn't matter in many ways i dread the day, b/c if we were to focus on the huge socio-economic disparities in this country. and that is a serious, serious problem.

I agree 100%.

Oh and Shankel - I totally knew his album came out Aug. 30th. (I went to the store and listened to it!) I don't know what I was thinking when I said yesterday. Tuesdays run together I suppose...

Seashells · Dooney & Bourke

LexNVA wrote:

I think that Kanye was not making that statment for his own agend but rather just speaking how he felt because that is the type of person he is and if you listen to alot of his music you can tell that he speaks his mind. As far as people from the "projects" not leaving their homes, they were not the only people that didn't want to leave there were many others that did the same. Also, there is no excuse for how long it took to evacuate the superdome and maybe the ("white people" as you have described as being the people in the hotels which I am here to say I'm sure they weren't the only ones.) But maybe if conditions had been better at the superdome then it would have been better for EVERYONE!

I am going to go ahead and agree with LexNVA here. I know Kanye has a new album coming out, but that has been scheduled for a while before this whole tragedy struck. He should not be looked at as an opportunist right now because he was bringing to light something he felt strongly about. There are a lot of "black" people that live in NO, and unfortunately they were the majority of those who could not leave, (because a proper evacuation plan was not put in place).

Does that have to do with Bush? Absolutely. While he ordered all major cities to create an emergency management plan, these plans and the funds that went into creating these plans were certainly not audited.

Does Bush hate the black people? Up for debate, but these emergency management plans do not account for the thousands of poor that couldn't leave, who are unfortunately prodominately black.

halleybird · Hermes

honey wrote:

the thing is given this country's history it's hard to eliminate race from discussions of class/socio-economic status (imo that was a huge factor in the administration's response or lack of one). as much as i wish for a society where race doesn't matter in many ways i dread the day, b/c if we were to focus on the huge socio-economic disparities in this country. and that is a serious, serious problem.

That is a hugely important point I didn't think about. Thanks for bringing it up.

jen · Kate Spade

We learned in my soc. class that discrimination is based more on economic status than actual race. And poor people live in the inner cities, and many of those people happen to be black. Poor white students are help back as much as poor black students and I think this carries on through out the lives of people of both races.

And if the president and/or government or other gov't officals are not helping the hurricane victims as much or as fast as they could based on the fact that this happened to a very poor city, that is a very sad thing. I think if this happened in NY or LA, help would have came quicker and at a stronger force. All I can do is say God is watching to see who helps and who doesn't. You can pretend to care in front of the U.S. citizens and on tv but it's what you actually do that counts in the end.