In response to former President W. Bush writing that West calling him a racist was one of the lowest points of his Presidency, West said this: “I definitely can understand the way he feels to be accused of being a racist in any way, because… the same thing happened to me. I got accused of being a racist, and… with both situations, it was a lack of… compassion that America saw in that situation. “You know with him, it was a lack of compassion with him not… taking the time to rush down to New Orleans. With me, it was a lack of compassion of cutting someone off in their moment. But nonetheless, you know I think we’re all quick to pull, like a race card, in America. Now I’m more open and the poetic justice that I feel to have went through the same thing that he went through, and I really more connect with him on just a humanitarian level because that next morning, the next morning when he felt that, I felt that same thing too.”
OK, Katrina was a disaster though I thought it was a question of class and not race that lead to it. However, it is not comparable to West’s silliness that the entire world overreacted to.
One was a major disaster, the other personal life as mass entertainment.
As far as the latter is concerned, the question is as tricky as is humanly possible. When major publications take, say, Miley Cyrus’s video as sexual defamation, they are risking Miley Cyrus’s well being. Now do I care if she is hurt. Only in so far as we care about ANYBODY who is hurt. But on a personal level. well, worse things happen at sea.
Here, we rib, say Bono CONSTANTLY, not to mention Elvis Costello. But, believe it, only up to a point. We keep to the public facade. When Bono hurt his back we wished him well and laid off him until he was back up and running. We may dislike Costello’s musical output in the 00s, we still never mention his family at all. It is, essentially, on a business level we make fun of these guys. We might say El looks old but we don’t write about his children.
For young entertainers it is much, much worse. One of the cardinal rules of being alive is: do as little damage as you can manage. Being a public figure is not a good enough a reason to be simply (maybe a good reason to be complicatedly) reviled.