America’s pissin me off. Less than a week ago, on September 9th, 2009, a Congressman by the name of Joe Wilson had an outburst during the Presidential Address to Congress. President Barack Obama was talking about the health care reform and Congressman Joe Wilson yelled out, “You lie!” You might think this is old news and you might be wondering why I’m writing about this now.
Because people seem to have forgotten. This happened less than a week ago. During a Presidential Address. Just want to make sure the facts are out there. The videos are everywhere but I’ll post it here too.
I really and truly did not want to make this about race. I didn’t even want to write this article to be honest with you. I didn’t want to be that blogger who had to get all Angry Black Woman on the issue. Like on Bad Boys II, “You always gotta go racial, man. It’s sad.” It’s one of my pet peeves for people to blame everything on race.
The only reason I’m talking about race now is because of another event that happened. The now infamous Kanye West/Taylor Swift incident.
In case you didn’t know because you were doing any number of things more important than watching the VMAs, there was an incident. Taylor Swift won Best Female Video over Beyonce. Beyonce seemed fine with that. She’s won other awards an earlier in the night she stated the award she really wanted to win was Video of the Year. Kanye didn’t agree. Kanye West ran on stage, took the mic from Taylor Swift, and said “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, and I’ll let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time One of the best videos of all time!”
Kanye West apologized less than an hour after the show via his blog, called Taylor Swift, and apologized on Jay Leno. He apologized. But people freaked out. Even Barack Obama called him a “jackass” in what was supposed to be an off the record comment. Joe Wilson made a quick apology after his outburst and when House Democrats asked him to make a formal apology he said, “I believe one apology is sufficient.” Today, September 15 Wilson received a “resolution of disapproval” from the House which is basically a slap on the wrist and now everybody’s happy. He’s more of a joke and a trendsetter now. “You lie!” will live on forever. Kanye? He’s done in some people’s minds.
Regardless of how I feel about the Joe Wilson outburst or the Kanye interruption what really and truly angered me were the resulting comments. The night of the VMAs Twitter went crazy. Sidebar: If you want to get to know someone, read their Twitter. People post their real thoughts without filters. Because of these unfiltered thoughts there was this surge in comments about Kanye West and the n-word. White people were calling him a nigger, saying he should be lynched, commenting that they were going to be deleting all of his music and never supporting him again.
Joe Wilson interrupts the President of the United States during a Presidential Address and gets $1 million in donations to his re-election campaign. Kanye West interrupts a singer at the Video Music Awards and is chastised by all of America. None of this had anything to do with race. While I believe Kanye West wouldn’t have done that if it were Mary J. Blige or some other black singer up there, I also don’t think he’d do that if it were Pink (who’s white, in case you didn’t know).
Race never had to be brought up in any of this but you know what? What Kanye West and what Joe Wilson did are the exact same thing. In my opinion Joe Wilson’s was worse because it’s a formal event and you’re not supposed to do that. The VMAs has a history of people climbing on stage, on the scenery, and other things while drunk. It’s what gets them their viewers. They love it.
The facts:
A Congressman interrupts a President during an address to Congress.
A rapper interrupts a singer during an awards show.
Maybe I’m idealistic or naive but it would seem to me that the former would get more of a backlash than the latter. Want to know why Joe Wilson isn’t being crucified like Kanye West is? Because a white man interrupted a black man in his case. Kanye West’s case? A black rapper interrupted a sweet, angelic, country singer. Plain and simple. That’s not acceptable in America. And they let it be known.
Article by Michelle Huxtable
Michelle Huxtable is a little Michelle Obama and a little Claire Huxtable. You can catch more from her at www.michelle-huxtable.com. Follow at Twitter.com/MichelleHux
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yea its messed up (theoretically), but I guarantee Kanye will net more than $1,000,000 through increase album sales from the publicity, so will Taylor, and so will Beyonce… All in all its just a media distraction, because they all will cake off from this “stunt”
@nudy, I know he’ll receive more support from me but I have plenty of friends who have said that will delete all his music from their ipod/itunes and not support him any longer.
@Michelle Huxtable, see, I don’t support what Joe Wilson did just like I don’t support what Kayne did. I got over what Kayne did because it was a freakin bootleg award’s show. But I don’t understand patting him on the back.
@JG*, I misspoke. Or mistyped. I won’t be upping my support for him. I just meant if I like Kanye’s songs I’m going to keep playing them.
Man I said the same thing last night and I summed it up by saying poor little T-Swift…she still going to make bank and maybe even more than ever before. I am so tired of the double standards for Black people! Great read and post by Nudy!
I have to say that you just encapsulated what I’ve been telling people the last few days. Kudos!
I agree with you in that it wasn’t all that serious for people to be going after Kanye West. Like really. It Just Wasn’t That Deep. However, he was dead ass wrong. Plus it looks kind of silly that many of us were yelling about how wrong Joe Wilson was to act our of decorum and then pay Kanye on the back. I don’t believe we should get all up in arms about it because like you said, it was just an awards show, but the idea is the same. There is a time and a place, and a better way.
You are also right in that Joe Wilson’s not getting half of what he should. But then again, that’s our fault. Like I wrote in my blog, we have just as much power to act as those who are giving Joe WIlson money. While lots of people gave money to his opponent Rob Miller I wonder how many of US looked up what he stood for, applauded his military past, and gave some money to see that we have better representatives in Congress? How many of us are pulling together and hosting townhall meetings in our cities to educate people on HCR? How many of us got on the phone after Joe’s outburst to call our reps to demand they back reform? Be mad at their actions, but even madder at our inaction. (Is madder a word?)
@JG*, Very true. I contemplated this as well with the Joe Wilson situation. I asked myself if people are going against Kanye how can I go against Joe Wilson? I think a lot of people are like me and didn’t really know what to do.
@Michelle Huxtable, I mean I think you’re dead on. Like look people….. boycotting Kanye is a kick in the stomach to real boycotts. Like WTH… Be mad at what he did, say that, then move the hell on. What Joe Wilson did on the other hand is NO BUENO!! But it’s bigger than just that one moment. It requires us to GO IN instead of move on. So kudos to this post and I hope people understand that making a teenaged girl cry is pebbles compared to disrespecting the office of the President that is the “Leader of the free world”.
This is everything I thought but was too lazy to write. Kudos! I’m pretty much giving everyone the side-eye right about now. o_O
@Luvvie, Thanks!
PREACH!!!!!! TABERNACLE!!! TU SHEA!!!!!! lol
THEY straight OJ’d Kanye…it is what it is..we are still divided ..but it segregation hasn’t been that long ago..we got a long ways to go
Kanye is the residnet Nigga in the building. He keeps cats in line. What you call antics. I call reality check.. I hate mainstream black artists that are so PC they get blinded to the real realities of the situation. So who here thinks that USA isn’t racist? YOU LIE
@young Lynch IV, Very true. If a Harvard Professor, Henry Louis Gates can’t get into his own house without being arrested, what makes the rest of us think we can just do whatever we want?
This is a very good take on two different events because you have addressed an underlying issue that most people overlook because they refuse to acknowlege it (how race still plays a role in American sentiment). Interestingly enough, former President Jimmy Carter spoke bluntly about this same sentiment yesterday on NBC nightly news. Check it out http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/15/carter.obama/index.html
Truth is Joe wilson AND Kanye were wrong. I personally think what Joe did was more significant seeing as he comprimised national security by disrespecting the president and kanye stole the highlight of a girls teenage life from her but at the end of the day they were BOTH way out of line and wrong.