I hate to break it to Kanye West, and to you if you subscribe to that firebrand's most famous piece of rhetoric, but George Bush cares about black people.

You wouldn't know it from his demeanor, his famous Yalie smirk and country swagger forever leading you to believe he's about two beers away from calling Colin Powell "boy." Certainly his lax, almost uninterested response to Hurricane Katrina did nothing for his pro-black image ("Brownie, you're doing a helluva job"). And, indeed, some of the man's stances on policy – like his stern opposition to the hate crimes bill – at best reek of ignorance, and at worst of bigotry. Yet despite all that, I can't, in good faith, condemn Dubya as a person who cares not for black people.

Bad President? Definitely. Oblivious? Absolutely. Unfeeling racist out to rid the world of blacks? No way. And the reason I'm certain of this begins and ends with Africa.

It is a matter of fact – a criminally underreported one at that – that, since he's been in office, George W Bush has dedicated a tremendous amount of manpower and money to the various problems of Africa. How much? According to the musician and activist Bob Geldof, who recently traveled with the POTUS to Ghana, Bush has done more for Africa than any American president in history. In the new issue of Time magazine, Geldof gives specifics:

In 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs — and they had to pay for their own medicine. Today, 1.3 million are receiving medicines free of charge. The U.S. also contributes one-third of the money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — which treats another 1.5 million. It contributes 50% of all food aid…On a seven-day trip through Africa, Bush announced a fantastic new $350 million fund for other neglected tropical diseases that can be easily eradicated; a program to distribute 5.2 million mosquito nets to Tanzanian kids; and contracts worth around $1.2 billion in Tanzania and Ghana from the Millennium Challenge Account, another initiative of the Bush Administration.

Speaking generally, the Bush administration has quadrupled funding for programs in Africa, home to millions of the world's poorest dark people. Don't anyone tell me that George Bush doesn't care about blacks. The question is: why doesn't his generosity begin right outside his front door?