Shutup, fool

Kanye West is hinting that he's been banned from talking about Hurricane Katrina. The rapper is due to appear at an NFL concert tomorrow, and an MTV telethon on Saturday. So until Sunday, he says, he "can't say anything about it [Katrina] or wear any T-shirts that say anything about it." (read more here)

Isn’t this ludicrous? West's comments (that the US is set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible" ) merely echo sentiments that have been expressed at length in the mainstream press.

Isn’t there some value in such comments being made on primetime TV to an audience that doesn’t watch political discussion programmes? How much damage could a T-shirt do to American society? And isn’t there something inherently creepy about the media saying "don't listen to that black man talking about racism, he's just a bit emotional"?

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