Thank you Harry, for not letting Kanye West get away with that terrible slander.
AMY GOODMAN: Kanye West, after Hurricane Katrina, said President Bush
doesn't like black people. Do you agree?
HARRY BELAFONTE: I do not know that I could look upon President Bush
as someone who actively works every day of his life to oppress and to
kill black people as a direct act of race. I think his insensitivity,
in the class frame, being who he is, coming from the privileges that
he does, being one who pursues the edge of imperial ambition -- not so
much the edge, he's right smack in the center of it -- he can be
expected to do those things, which will cruelly administer no relief
at all to those who are oppressed, who are poor. And in that act,
because of the way in which our society is structured, a large group
of brown people, a large group of yellow people, a large group of
black people, are on the cutting edge, are on the forefront of this
nation's poverty. And therefore, we feel the brunt of it.
One cannot help but wonder that if what happened in Katrina in that
region of America had happened somewhere in Maine or had happened
somewhere else in America where white sensibilities and white life
would have been in great jeopardy, that our nation would have been
that blurred, and certainly our government, to what was happening to
the citizens who are not white. I think somewhere in the American
psyche, black people are expendable when we try to sustain our
positions of privilege and our positions of power, just as I think
people in the Middle East are expendable. I don't think America really
knows who we are. We don't know our fellow citizens. We don't know the
nations we invade. We don't have a real deep and honest sense of who
we are as a people, both on the good side of the ledger, to who we are
as a people that comes from the dark side of the ledger. We are the
most uninformed people on the face of the earth. And I don't say that
as hyperbole.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CanYoAssDigIt/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
CanYoAssDigIt-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
No comments:
Post a Comment