USA: Disaster: Kanye & Katrina West underwater in New Orleans

Kanye West, a 26-year-old rapper and recently enriched thereby to maintain status in the upper reaches of the Black middle-class, has wed himself to Katrina, an entity of another species with whom he shares her rage. Some of this rapper's rage was utterly human and justifiable; another element of it was mechancial, like that of his new wife. [My semiotic analysis occurs within the bracketed material in the quote from Mr West below - Owlb.]

West: "I hate the way they [Blacks and Whites producing news coverage] portray us [Blacks who loot and/or look for food,] in the media. You see a black family, it [the technical assemblage of images and voiceover/s constructed by the team of technical media experts involved] says, "They're [the Blacks are] looting." You see a white family, it [the same technical assemblage by the same kinds of media experts mentioned, but who, when their images of Blacks are compared with their images of Whites and then the two different portrayals are juxtaposedas part of a single narrative as it were - then, thus editorialized, the constructed narrative no longer belongs to either of the originating reporters or camera men or audio techies but now involves TV news editors who construct the juxtaposition] says, "They're [the Whites who are looting or looking for food, are merely] looking for food."

I intervene in the text of wealthy Mr West's discourse, to applaud his gumption and selection of a semiotic factoid that constitutes in itself an indictment of the hysterical kind of coverage given to viewing world as presented by the imagery and word unique to the narrative-creating editors of CNN and ilk in the panic-journalism that flooded the airwaves in the wake of Mrs West's rage. This was Kanye's moment of truth - to give voice on NBC's fundraiser show to the racist insensitivity of TV news editors in putting one reporter's voiceover using the word "looting" in juxtaposition to another reporters's voiceover with another set of images and recorded spoken words, where the term chosen for the imagery portraying the Whites was merely "looking for" ... food. Neither of the reporters involved are at fault, but the overall editorial process of the narrative-creating editors who create such a fateful juxtaposition are. I was only watching CNN in those days, and saw these images, and saw Mr West's presentation. Was it before or after his presentation that CNN news editors selected reports of two different reporters to juxtapose directly and immediately the two narratives directly?, I would be interested to know.



Kanye West did not end his national prime-time intervention with that brilliant observation. Back to the rapper, the transcript of whose remarks can be found in "Kanye West's Torrent of Criticism, Live on NBC," by Lisa de Moralaes [(column, The TV Column), WaPo, Sept 3, 2k5, webpage C01].

West: "And, you know, it's been five days [waiting for federal help, adds Moralaes in her own brackets] because most of the people are black." That's the inner hurricane in Mr West himself speaking [with a little clarifying held from Moralaes]. And sad to say, it is a lie, a hurricanic lie, but nevertheless a lie. A presumptuous falsehood, for which he can be forgiven because of the overflow of intense feeling generated by the insensitivity of the panic newsediting on programs like those of CNN - especially Blitz Wolf, Karen HeadlinePrime, and Nancy Grace. Yes, it's true that I can't remember the black woman's name in this trio, but then Blitz and Nancy are well (even excessively) labelled - while HeadlinePrime's stupid and uncritical advocate for Mr West was not labelled when I went back to her evening news show in order to attach names to my CNN-unfamiliar memories for this write-up some days after the events.

West: "And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give does he mean, he'd like to give the biggest amount possible relative to his retaining a tax deduction, discount, write-off, etc? ... because if not, I would add that otherwise the sky's the limit, Mr West, as in "sell all that you have and give the proceeds to the poor"], and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there [here in Mr West's discourse "my people" means "my race" who have been labelled 'looters,' when a comparative group of whites are only 'looking-for's]. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible." America is set up to help the black people as slow as possible, says West, in a concept that is sheer unmitigated racist ideology.

West: "I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've [is this the TV news editors again?, apparently not and apparently Mr West has a most slippery use of "they" at work for him in this discourse] given them [USA soldiers?] permission to go down and shoot us!"

Another hurricane-force lie! in which West adopts the media-editors' juxatpositions as his own, not pausing to consider that some Blacks are robbing, harming, and intimiadating other Blacks, as well as Whites, the poor as well as the well off. Indeed, some Whites also do the same against Blacks and Whites, rich and poor. That the government would give law enforcement permission to shoot the dreadful few in both racial configurations when the perpetrators are cawt in the act of harming others, is completely lost on Mr West in his rage of racist emotion.

In his second round on the NBC show, West demonstrated his absurdity further, by tacking on this tidbit.

West: "George Bush doesn't care about black people!"

On to other voices. In a wide-ranging article in The Washington Post, "Was Kanye West Right?," by Dan Froomkin (column, White House Briefing), WaPo, Sept 13, 2k5 (5 webpages), the Black journalist doesn't inspire any more confidence in Mr West and his racist worldview, while not really analyzing what West did and said in a serious way, to skip off and cover many other facets of the story, facets that have been reworked in the media at large since that time.

Now, with Hurricane Rita being upgraded to Category 5 and its path being projected as most likely to hit in the vicinity of New Orleans or Galveston, the recent claim that New Orleans would be drained by October is now wishful thinking only, the post facto adoption as a commonplace the notion that the levee's holding a river and lake back from inundating a large city looks much more significant than the five-days that Mr West so feverishly focused on in his bout of logistical lunacy. Another flash of resentment is now surfacing over the fact that the New Orleans' government was anxious to get citizens back into the least damaged areas, some people were returning to the town - only to be urged out again, due to Rita's developing ferocity. In the mood of Mr West, I just saw celebrities on TV setting up a blame scenario again, this time for encouraging evacuees to become returnees and then to become evacuees again. Is mindless blaming really an adult activity in these disaster-driven days? - Owlb