Dear Kanye,

If you haven't been watching the news lately, the tirade you issued on NBC's Hurricane Katrina telethon has become a flashpoint for reactions from people ranging from Condoleeza Rice to the Los Angeles Times editorial board. You took the outrage felt across political and social boundaries and summarized it into seven simple words: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."\nAfter more than a week of outrage, the Bush administration is finally taking notice of its horribly ineffectual response to Katrina. Whether by feigning surprise like Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff or by blaming residents like FEMA Director Michael Brown, nothing it says can make up for the woeful lack of response to a massive human disaster. \nIf thousands of poor, immobile, mostly black people are stranded in a flooded, infested, flammable city, the federal government can't do anything but sit on its hands for days. Meanwhile, if you're a white female high school student on vacation in Aruba, the national news media and a significant FBI presence come to help you out. If you're a pretty white woman who's in a permanent vegetative state, Congress and the president will come back to Washington to pass a special law just for you.\nBut if that hurricane comes, wait a couple days. They'll get back to you.\nDoes Bush really not care about black people? I don't know, Kanye. None of us are President Bush, so none of us can really say. Nevertheless, you hit it right on the button when you said that race had an effect on the government's reaction, whether consciously or not. \nBush might be obligated to do the best he can for the country, but like it or not, he does the best he can for the constituents who voted for him. And with 88 percent of black Americans voting for John Kerry in 2004, I bet a contingency plan to protect the people of New Orleans wasn't on top of Bush's priority list.\nStill, Kanye, even though I agree with what you say and find the Bush administration's handling of Katrina contemptible, I think you could've picked a better time to say what you did. Did you have a national audience? Yes. Are you right? To some extent. You might have sparked a debate, but I think the method in which it was created was slighting to those dead who have made New Orleans their final resting place. Rather than making the issue about the people that Bush is ignoring, you've made the issue about you.\nKanye, what I'm saying is, the words that get the most airtime shouldn't be yours, but those in New Orleans, Biloxi, Miss., Mobile, Ala., and the rest of the affected region. As much as I love your work, I think all of us must do what we can and get people to safety and security until the waters recede. Then we can tear Bush and his incompetent cronies a new one together.\nWith love, \nPeter Chen\nP.S. I loved "Late Registration"