In case you missed what Kanye West said on NBC...

[WilliamPitt]

West and Mike Myers had been paired up to appear about halfway through the show. Their assignment: Take turns reading a script describing the breach in the levees around New Orleans.

Myers: The landscape of the city has changed dramatically, tragically and perhaps irreversibly. There is now over 25 feet of water where there was once city streets and thriving neighborhoods.

(Myers throws to West, who looked extremely nervous in his super-preppy designer rugby shirt and white pants, which is not like the arrogant West and which, in retrospect, should have been a tip-off.)

West: I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days because most of the people are black. 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, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. 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. 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 given them permission to go down and shoot us!

(West throws back to Myers, who is looking like a guy who stopped on the tarmac to tie his shoe and got hit in the back with the 8:30 to La Guardia.)

Myers: And subtle, but in many ways even more profoundly devastating, is the lasting damage to the survivors' will to rebuild and remain in the area. The destruction of the spirit of the people of southern Louisiana and Mississippi may end up being the most tragic loss of all.

(And, because Myers is apparently as dumb as his Alfalfa hair, he throws it back to West.)

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

(Back to Myers, now looking like the 8:30 to La Guardia turned around and caught him square between the eyes.)

Myers: Please call . . .

At which point someone at NBC News finally regained control of the joystick and cut over to Chris Tucker, who started right in with more scripted blah, blah, blah.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090300165.html

[Triana]

1. Omygod! Somebody told the TRUTH!

STOP that man!!

Puh.

[crispini]

2. Now THAT's funny!

:rofl:

Go, Kanye. I don't listen to much rap but I'm a fan now!

[mduffy31]

3. Real Time

Well on real time last night they had two pictures of people doing the same thing and the captions were, the black KID was looting but the white ADULTS were just "finding food"

[Count Popeula]

4. Not to nitpick

But wasn't it Bill Bellamy they threw to?

Still, West was brilliant, and surprsingly, the only think NBC cutfrom the rebroadcast was the "Bush hates black people" line, leaving the initial statement from west intact.

[tjdee]

5. No, it was Chris Tucker.

Bill Bellamy hasn't had a career in years, don't think anyone's calling him up for anything.

[Count Popeula]

25. My shows must be running together

Bill Belamy was on Weekends at the DL last night, actually, and was pretty entertaining. And I didn't think Chris Tucker was anything more than a C-List celeb himself, but who knows.

[Skittles]

6. I saw it live and I did not think Mr. West looked "nervous"

I thought he looked stricken and sad and angry and anguished at what he has been witnessing the past few days

[LynneSin]

10. I hate those dumbass scripts

Let the people speak from the heart.

And btw, anyone who saw Live8 saw Kayne West drill into George W. Bush so NBC should have known the guy was anti-Bush or maybe secretly they knew this guy was a livewire and let him go on anyways.

I'm buying me some Kayne West CDs this weekend!

[goclark]

13. My eyes saw the same thing yours did Skittles

I am still so proud of him!

[Skittles]

15. I didn't know who he was

but I adore him now

[nuxvomica]

14. You got it right

I had just walked into the TV room when West began speaking and I thought this was news coverage. I didn't know who the guy was but I thought he gave an impassioned, heartfelt speech and I was surprised such honesty was getting airtime. Not nervous but just what you described. Myers is the one who looked nervous. It wasn't till he spoke that I realized I was watching a scripted show.

[LynneSin]

7. You should have seen the donation lines!!

Our company volunteer our phone banks to help take phone calls last night and the idiots started calling like some volunteer at the other end could do something about it. Since we had no TV or way of viewing we had no idea just what was said so I put my phone into 'aftercall works' and called JimmyJazz who filled me in with details.

But fortunately the anger died out and soon the donations started coming back in!

[MrBenchley]

8. Will, what we saw this week was "criminally negligent homicide"

on the part of the entire executive branch and the Republican party...and I'm glad people like Kanye are speaking out.

Last night on Headline News's "showbiz tonite" the twinkies hosting it were reading viewer e-mails. One right winger complained about the liberal media and the "allegedly slow response" and the cupcake hosting said angrily..."It wasn't an allegedly slow response! It was a slow response!"

[Heidi]

9. Video links here:

wmv: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Kayne-West-Bush-Black-People.wmv

QT: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Kayne-West-Bush-Black-People.mov

[crispini]

18. BEST VIDEO EVER!!!!!!

Floaty hearts for Kanye West! :loveya: SPEAK THE TRUTH!

[curse10]

23. no longer there- any others?

[Heidi]

28. They're still there, but

it seems the website is getting a lot of traffic this morning. If Mr. Heidi can capture the videos, we'll put them up on our server and a I'll give the link here in the morning.

[Heidi]

31. The servers at crooksandliars.com are overloaded right now.

But the links are active otherwise.

[AnnieBW]

32. Jesus Walks, Bush Lies!

Or, "Jesus Walks, Bush Flies Over".

[Heidi]

33. Dupe. Self-delete. (nt)

[Heidi]

34. Right on.

"Jesus Walks" demonstrated to me more than a year ago Kanye West's humanity and understanding of how our country has operated for a long time.

[Donailin]

11. They edited his remarks for the west viewers and made an official disclaim

er. ""Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks. It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion."


Yeah, God forbid someone thinks that the corporate media in any way shape of form looks like they oppose the president as much as the people do.

Fuckers.

[WilliamPitt]

12. They edited his last line

about Bush hating Black people. The longer rant they left in.

[goclark]

16. Exactly ..they left in enough to get the attention

of millions of people.

What a brave young man to say what we all have wanted to say a million times.

[Donailin]

17. it would have been cool if they just edited "black people" and left it as

"Bush hates"

in which we could all respond "America!"

"Bush hates America."

[Pobeka]

29. Yep. I remember the long rant, but not the * hates black people.

I'm still amazed and pleased they kept the long rant in.

[Heidi]

19. Nominated. (nt)

[curse10]

20. I wish I had seen that

It must have been beautiful

[Penndems]

21. Every once in a while, the truth finally gets out

God bless you, Kayne.

[Heidi]

22. Kick. (nt)

[KittyWampus]

24. Myers was dumb/mute but he is not dumb/stupid. I've heard him give

some very insightful social commentary before.

[mzmolly]

26. I saw it as it happened and frankly I was so much in agreement that I

was not phased. I guess looking back it was a notable moment.

[TOOLZ]

27. The beauty of the moment

Mike Myers is looking like he doesn't know if he should nod approvingly and show support, stare at th ecamera, or just look at Kanye. Great moment. Then as Kanye wraps his searing speech, Myers looks relieved that he can actually parlay it back into his next scripted line. Awkwardness solved! Phew! Then when he's done, Kanye removes ANY doubt about his message and blurts "George Bush doesn't care about black people!"

[hiley]

30. Kanye was beautiful speaking the truth!

Disappointing that Mike Myers did not say something to back Kanye up.

[shockra]

39. Since Mike didn't say it to Kanye, I will.

YEAH, BAY-BEE! ^5

[oxbow]

35. Real Christians aren't afraid to speak truth to power

For the TRUTH will set you free. Kanye is a real and pretty devout Christian. He was blaming everybody from himself to Bush for not responding like they should have. If this was South Beach, things would have been a lot different.

[Heidi]

37. Yes, you're right. Mr. West _is_ a real and devout Christian.

Kanye is a normal, decent human being. He was interviewed for last week's Swiss (German language) publication, "Weltwoche" (World Week), where he said, "I live for Jesus, but I dream of pu$$y." I admire his honesty, his intelligence and his accomplishments, but mostly his courage. He's one of the few accomplished young men today who have the guts to speak truth to power about institutionalized racism, poverty and homophobia in our country.

[Heidi]

36. Kick. (nt)

[Cha]

38. Thank you so much, Will!

I had just read little bits and pieces..this is Magnificent coming from Kanye West.

Kanye West was one of the "Highlights" at the aol/Live 8 Concerts from Philly..

http://music.channel.aol.com/live_8_concert/highlights

http://mp.aol.com/video.index.adp?pls=music.live8_us_philadelphia_070305_3PM&start=18&_AOLFORM=w708.h344.p7.R1