Patterico's Pontifications

8/24/2011

The Martin Luther King Memorial In Washington, D.C. (Updated)

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 7:06 am



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Update: It seems serendipitous that I saw this product today…

Also in response to the comments, I believe that Dr. King’s image is not properly the subject to any intellectual property rights, seeing that he was a major historical figure.  But given that this is a family that paid a heavy price for his service, I’m not going to object.  And it has nothing to do with any sense of guilt, which is impossible because I wasn’t even an idea when he died (and I never buy into the concept of collective guilt).  Instead it’s two things for me.  First, regardless of whose fault it is, this family has paid a heavy price.

Second, as a matter of policy, when you risk your life for what is right, we should have your back.  The very least we can do is say to any future potential martyr (for a good cause) “if the bastards kill you, we will make sure your family is taken care of.”  Dr. King knew that he was in a dangerous business and besides the ordinary fear of death, he must also have been afraid of what would happen to his family if they lost its chief breadwinner.

That’s just my opinion, continue to share and frankly I thought the comments I have seen were pretty interesting even when I disagreed.

The original post resumes.

————————————–

So they are getting ready to unveil a Martin Luther King memorial, marking a rarity in American life—a wholly private citizen getting his own memorial in the Capital.  But there have been some controversy.  One issue is that they found a Chinese national to make it—that is a man from China, as opposed to a Chinese American.

However, there has been controversy over the choice of Lei Yixin, a 57-year-old master sculptor from Changsha in Hunan province, to carry out the work. Critics have openly asked why a black, or at least an American, artist was not chosen and even remarked that Dr King appears slightly Asian in Mr Lei’s rendering.

And of course the actual work was mainly outsourced:

Mr Lei, who has in the past carved two statues of Mao Tse-tung, one of which stands in the former garden of Mao Anqing, the Chinese leader’s son, carried out almost all of the work in Changsha.

More than 150 granite blocks, weighing some 1,600 tons, were then shipped from Xiamen to the port of Baltimore, and reassembled by a team of 100 workmen, including ten Chinese stone masons brought over specifically for the project.

Personally, I think to focus on the ethnicity of the man kind of misses the point of Dr. King’s legacy.  If the best sculptor doesn’t happen to be black, what of it?

Wanting to have it made in America isn’t wrong, however, but let me posit this.  If it should be a source of national pride for the Chinese that one of their own made this, then perhaps it will encourage the Chinese to learn more about the man.  They will learn in his belief in freedom, and equality of opportunity.  They will learn of his courage, and he will tell them forthrightly from the grave that it was his faith that gave him that courage.  Is that such a bad thing?  It seems the Chinese could use some of his philosophy.

So my only objection is, well…  look at it.

(Source for photo.  You can also see a slideshow, here.)

Arms crossed, looking stern.  I am not precisely sure what kind of pose I would have liked to see, but I don’t think that is the right one for Dr. King.  I see Dr. King as ultimately a man of profound love; this guy looks like he is going to tell you to get off his lawn.

But what do you think about the controversy and the finished product?  Sound off, friends.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

108 Responses to “The Martin Luther King Memorial In Washington, D.C. (Updated)”

  1. It has an unfortunate “Han Solo frozen in Carbonite” look to it.

    Samsam von Virginia (04b8c2)

  2. Sam

    Holy crap you’re right.

    Aaron Worthing (85b089)

  3. “But what do you think about the controversy and the finished product?”

    I like to think that if someone asked Dr. King about building a memorial to him, he’d say something like this:

    “You want to build a memorial for me? Send your kids to school. Make sure they get good grades. Prepare them for college. Give money to colleges so they can fund scholarships for deserving students. Not just historically black colleges, and not just black students, but anyone who wants to go to college and can’t afford it. Train your children to become doctors, so they can heal the sick in your communities. Train your children to become lawyers, so they can fight for justice everywhere. Train your children to become engineers, so they can change the world for the better.
    You want to build a memorial to me? That’s the kind of memorial I’d like to see.”

    Dwight Brown (f53545)

  4. He looks more pensive than stern to me, maybe even a little sad. Eyes off in the middle distance, possibly considering the legacy of his efforts and the mixed record of the civil rights movement after his death.

    Eric E. Coe (1a1f29)

  5. The people who say the portrait looks slightly Chinese are right. He’s also too old – he looks like he is in his 40s. Te sculptor simply made something very similar to what he’s used to doing.

    We should check but maybe the pose is also something similar to what was done in China.

    It looks like he’s holding a diploma. Or at least in the United States this could only be a diploma. Probably it makes more sense in China. It might be something tradionally used in China for indicating a scholar (this folded up paper would be the paper he wrote on)

    The people who commissioned this probably assumed he knew all about him, but Lei Yixin probably knew only what they told him.

    At least he had enough sense not to have him holding a brush for making Chinese characters.

    Lei Yixin probably made him into a scholar because Martin Luther King never held any political office. The Chinese government probably made very little available about Martin Luther King (I mean they don’t really want to encourage “passive resistance” or any kind of citizen action like that of Mohandus Gandhi in India or this year the Arab spring, not to mention Tiananmen Square) and Lei Yixxan probably knew very little about him and probably would have been stopped by the Great Firewall of China from finding out more if he was interested.

    And there’s probably only a very carefully written and edited version of is life available in Chinese. There has to be a little something since there’s an American holiday named after hi.

    I would guess the Chinese government would want to make him much more into a thinker than any kind of activist. Even in Taiwan he’s not too well known.

    http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-is-martin-luther-king-jr-oh-you.html

    “I was, however, more than stunned that almost-no-one in Taiwan seemed to recognize the photo of Dr. King. Moreover, they did not seem to recognize his name—regardless as to how I pronounced it.

    Later, I looked on Wikopedia [sic] and discovered that next-to-nothing had been written about one of the great men of the last 100 years in Chinese—at least on Wikipedia. Amazing.

    http://gan.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E9%A6%AC%E4%B8%81%C2%B7%E8%B7%AF%E5%BE%B7%C2%B7%E9%87%91&variant=gan

    So he devoted an issue of his newsletter to this.

    “I had decided to do this after hearing a comment by a principal at one school, who had responded—“Who is that?” as she looked at the photo of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [2]

    Over the next several days at the different schools where I work I took about 20 seconds to clarify that (1) there was a national holiday in America this January 17, (2) the holiday was named after a famous American that many people on the planet recognize immediately, and (3) this is a service-oriented holiday. making these three points did not take more than 20 to 30 seconds of my colleagues time. I often began the 3-point spiel by asking the potential reader (a colleague) if they knew the dark man in the photo, i.e. Dr. M.L. King, Jr.

    Finally, in the newsletter, itself, I had also noted that (a) teachers are constantly doing service to the community, but that (b) MLK Day asks all Americans to set aside time to give service to their communities.”

    It does?

    Sammy Finkelman (d3de3a)

  6. at least we can check something off the damn list how often does our bumbling and declining little country do that anymore

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  7. Big important statues, like lots of other major creative works, have a tendency to deliver an initial shock and to be met with some level of public unease or even with dismay. Yet as they become more familiar over time they become better received and eventually achieve widespread acceptance.

    This statue is no different, the pigeons will pay it the same respect they show for statues of our Founding Fathers and Civil War Generals.

    ropelight (ce232c)

  8. I agree with Eric, he looks serious and a little sorrowful. Overall I like it.

    RWS (9d1bb3)

  9. yes, I have a dream
    chinese work song carving with
    cat’s-eye marble eyes

    whiskey tango foxtrot

    ColonelHaiku (8211ab)

  10. the inscrutable
    face hides secret fear that O
    is next in series

    Timesdislaiku (3c6e37)

  11. What about the bigger controversy of the family being paid $800,000 to use his image in this memorial?

    Mike S (d3f5fd)

  12. MLK looks seriously pissed off at somebody; WTF are you DOING?

    Bugg (ea1809)

  13. Could the racist China-man have made his lips any bigger? (* and yes, chinese are very racist *)

    S. Carter aka J-Z (786e37)

  14. #11, Funny.

    S. Carter aka J-Z (786e37)

  15. DI MGSGT King, called onto MCRD/SD on a Sunday morning, looking at the fresh 2LT who’s disrupted his day off for no good reason. This will be epic.

    Looks like him, but not, too. Frequently the case where I see a statue of someone I’ve met in real life. Photos, etc, are accurate but not alive.

    htom (412a17)

  16. the impermanence
    of styrofoam Greek columns
    captures Big Zer0

    ColonelHaiku (8211ab)

  17. MLK is spinning in his grave.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  18. What about the bigger controversy of the family being paid $800,000 to use his image in this memorial?

    WTF?

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  19. just Mott the Hoople
    and all the way from Memphis
    from James Earl Lei

    ColonelHaiku (8211ab)

  20. Yixin was fixin’
    to render the defender
    of black peeps soul deep

    ColonelHaiku (8211ab)

  21. Nobody likes whiners.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  22. I hear that there are no quotes at the memorial from the “I Have a Dream” speech. They give a different reason, but I suspect that the family wanted extra for that.

    I wonder if there was a price list, and God help us if we ever have to do a memorial to President Trump.

    Kevin M (563f77)

  23. I don’t understand what legal right they have to what he looked like.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  24. The Colonel makes a Mott reference! All the old dudes like me are impressed.

    Birdbath (19803d)

  25. I wouldn’t put up a statue to King in the first place.

    If I was going to put up a statue to a black guy from that time period it would be a statue of Walter Williams or Willie Mays.

    Dave Surls (eedd0e)

  26. I agree with Milhouse. It’s absurd to pay the family for the use of MLK’s image, or efforts to remember him. MLK belongs to everybody, period.

    But it surely isn’t a legal issue so much as a shakedown issue. Few want the hassle of MLK’s family saying you cheated them.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  27. Last week, Steve Sailer quoted commenter ‘Chief Seattle.’ He was, um, underwhelmed.

    It’s a monument to modern American corruption and incompetence in every way. First King’s family held it up because they wanted a payout. A payout to “use his likeness”. Not only were they not willing to “donate” his likeness for free to be used on a public monument, but some scumbag lawyer apparently managed to argue that chiseling an statue of a famous historical figure violates copyright.

    Then they get a mainland Chinese to sculpt it. Is that because out of 1 million art students in college at any time that none of them are competent enough to chisel some stone? Or that the powers that be just can’t bear to miss out cheap Chinese labor? Or maybe someone just figured that no one understands the American civil rights struggle and the physique of a black man like a mainland Chinese communist?

    Continues…

    From pictures of the memorial, I tend to agree. Though the Han Solo reference also seems apt.

    AMac (4826b2)

  28. When is it going to be finished. Seriously, it looks like the artist got bored with it and never finished carving it..

    Ellen (233b74)

  29. It looks like a member of the Kim Il Sung school of statuary.

    Mike K (8f3f19)

  30. I don’t criticize art because I am stupid about that subject.

    But I do think it’s interesting that an authoritarian society produced an authoritarian look to MLK. Like we should honor him because he commands it.

    I’m not sure there are a lot of rock carvers in US art schools. That’s a shame.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  31. -Comment by Milhouse — 8/24/2011 @ 8:47 am-

    They used this to stop the backers of California’s Prop 209(?) anti-discrimination measure from using a cut from his “Dream” speech. It is bad enough they use him as a cash cow but demanding payment for this singular honor to a civilian really jumped the shark. MLK was a great hero in my home when I was growing up and I still admire his courage. People today look at hustlers like Sharpton and Jackson and think protests then were safe headline grabbing games like they are today. They were not. MLK faced real danger to his life and family that these lowlifes would never consider facing. To see his family use their control over his image and words to support the very people and ideas that he fought is obscene.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  32. Well, at least he isn’t “hailing a taxi”.

    Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (016c4c)

  33. I do believe MLK deserves to be honored. In my opinion the legal discrimination based on race was an abomination and he showed courage and wisdom in the way he fought it and helped end it. He helped end a shameful blight on our nations honor and I will always feel grateful myself and feel the honor of a memorial to him from a grateful nation is well earned and appropriate.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  34. Several thoughts;

    1) MLK wasn’t a facially typical negro; there was a little bit of fold to his eyes, among other things, which an asian would pick up on and perhaps overemphasize.

    2) I’m not a reflexive reparations Liberal by any means, but what matters about the money isn’t that the King family is greedy (which I can’t say I know for sure) but that we, as a culture, owe them for a huge injury done to them because we didn’t value the man enough to give him effective police protection. Granted, there wasn’t a legal mechanism in place for that. Granted, in Memphis it might not have helped. It is still our failure as a people that we allowed this man be killed by some swine.

    3) If he looks older than he should, it’s probably because the chinese revere age, and tend to represent great persons as older than they really were at the moment depicted, as a sign of respect.

    4) The American Artists whining that this wasn’t given to an American need to examine their hearts. Few American Fine Art students are trained in representational technique; the disease of “modernism” has spread too far. Probably the best American sculptor of the 20th century was Frederick Hart, who was treated as a non-person by the art world during his life. The ugly truth may be that we went to the Chinese because we wanted something that didn’t look like an accident in a steel foundry.

    C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968)

  35. I think MLK was most deserving of an important and serious national memorial and I think this one does not do him or his work justice in the least. As others have mentioned, the facial likeness is completely off, and the pose is neither natural for him, appealing or inspirational. Finally, the omission of words from his magnificent Dream speech is unfathomable.

    The National Capital Planning Commission and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approved the site location for the King Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC in December 1999. Who the heck approved the design and oversaw the execution of the final product?

    elissa (4cbb30)

  36. -Comment by C. S. P. Schofield — 8/24/2011 @ 9:57 am-

    I am not sure your point #2 holds water. You might remember that two Kennedy brothers were also assassinated that decade. One could hardly imply that racism limited their protection. The fact that bigots targeted MLK rather than more radically offensive black power hustlers like Stokely Carmichael or Malcome X was a tribute to the effectiveness of King’s methods. They truly feared him while the others served their purposes by letting them point to them as what should be feared in letting black men out from under the thumb, painting them as dangerous and uncivilized.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  37. -Comment by elissa — 8/24/2011 @ 10:11 am-

    Remember that the words of his speech are anathema to modern liberal and Democratic dogma. They don’t want people going there. The family is strongly in favor of keeping black people on the Democratic plantation, serving their masters and getting the scraps they choose to throw their way.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  38. “we, as a culture, owe them for a huge injury done to them because we didn’t value the man enough to give him effective police protection”

    C. S. P. Schofield – Are you suggesting that America owes it to MLK’s immediate family and their future issue to treat them as “royalty” or some such?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  39. but what matters about the money isn’t that the King family is greedy (which I can’t say I know for sure) but that we, as a culture, owe them for a huge injury done to them

    I think they are clearly being extremely greedy. I don’t see how we can try to overlook it.

    Everyone has a grievance if you go back far enough. If they want to sue the police department for failure to protect someone, that’s their business. If they want to send any patriot a bill for honoring MLK like he’s their copyrighted family Mickey Mouse, I find that pretty awful.

    MLK’s loss was a loss for every white and black person in America.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  40. Machinist,

    I’m not saying that the name of our shame in connection to King’s assassination is Racism. I’m saying that the shame exists. When a people allow a Great Man to die of malice, or neglect, or any preventable cause, that people are shamed. Maybe the same is unavoidable. Maybe it isn’t as easily pigeon-holed as calling it Racism. But the shame exists, and so does the debt …. even if the people to whom the debt is wed are not themselves worthy of it.

    I confess that I would be a lot happier if I thought the money paid came from voluntary donation instead of taxes.

    C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968)

  41. The kings are greedy?

    DohBiden (d54602)

  42. -Comment by C. S. P. Schofield — 8/24/2011 @ 10:40 am-

    Are you saying that JFK and Robert Kennedy died because we did not value them enough to protect them? Do we owe their families this same debt? Should he have had more protection than the President of the United States?

    What kind of a society do you envision as making this kind of action impossible? I am not sure it would not be much worse than the original problem.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  43. The kings are greedy?

    Comment by DohBiden —

    Yep.

    If they want money, they should get jobs. They should not impose a penalty on those who wish to honor MLK and provide communities with more exposure to his ideas. They are actually making his message quieter specifically for selfish reasons.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  44. “But the shame exists, and so does the debt …. even if the people to whom the debt is wed are not themselves worthy of it.”

    C. S. P. Schofield – I feel a “debt” to many figures in American history, primarily a debt of gratitude for the things they accomplished. Some of these people lived in my lifetime, others did not. Some of them died too young, sometimes violently at times not of their own choosing. Shame is typically not part of equation. God cannot change the past and neither can I.

    You have an interesting perspective.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  45. -Comment by Dustin — 8/24/2011 @ 10:49 am-

    I don’t think it is just greed, though that is probably a factor. I think they want to limit that exposure as King’s message runs against their political agenda. It is very hard to reconcile King’s words with the modern liberal concept of government obsessed with identity politics and race.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  46. “Are you saying that JFK and Robert Kennedy died because we did not value them enough to protect them?”

    Machinist – Abraham Lincoln as well.

    The shame, the shame.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  47. Machinist,

    With the Kennedy brothers we at least TRIED. I’m not saying that protecting King would have been possible, but his death is a shame to our culture, even if it wasn’t preventable. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if, on the occasion of our building a monument to the memory of a man, the man’s family wants to be paid off, then paying them honors his memory, honors our motives, and shames (or should shame) the family. Triple Win!

    The Kennedy family asked to be paid off in less obvious ways.

    C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968)

  48. I think they want to limit that exposure as King’s message runs against their political agenda.

    That’s sadly a very astute point. Very well said.

    But I’d just lump that in as a different kind of greed and selfishness.

    MLK preached the exact opposite of race-based politics and the ‘progressive’ race agenda. To stifle it because one disagrees with it is profoundly wrong.

    It is a crime similar to the crime of murdering the man to silence him. Sure, it’s nowhere near comparable.

    I differ with CSP is saying paying them off honors MLK’s memory. I guess it’s better than not building any memorial at all, but to honor MLK’s memory we should simply refuse to give the hustlers any say in the matter at all.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  49. -Comment by daleyrocks — 8/24/2011 @ 10:55 am-

    You are right of course, but earlier Presidents were much more accessible. My point was that MLK’s assassination was bracketed between the killings of JFK and RFK so I hardly think one can make the case that “The Man” let MLK be killed because he was black. As I said earlier, it is to his everlasting honor that he knew the risks all too well and he pressed on. I expect he was targeted by the black power groups even more than the white power groups as his success hurt their cause. Look at what they did to Malcom X when he turned away from the Nation of Islam. He certainly knew this was the case.

    This very real danger is one of the reasons I have so much respect for Charlton Heston, who risked his life and his career to march there (Hollywood was very racist then and his views and actions were not career friendly.).

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  50. The artist did not capture the transcendent nature of the man, or at least, what he espoused.

    lonetown (d7ec3b)

  51. “You are right of course, but earlier Presidents were much more accessible.”

    Machinist – I was not criticizing your point, but C.S.P.’s logic of singling out people in American history who we owe a “debt” to and need pay graft that individual’s heirs in order to soothe the country’s shame. It’s a silly game and beneath America’s dignity, IMHO.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  52. -Comment by C. S. P. Schofield — 8/24/2011 @ 10:55 am-

    “With the Kennedy brothers we at least TRIED.”

    With respect Sir, how would you have protected him? He stepped out on a balcony and a sniper with a rifle shot him. Would you have banned all guns? Would you have put him in protective custody? Every time he marched or gave a speech he was and had to be in full view and therefore vulnerable. I am sure that law enforcement like Bull Connor would love to have put him out of sight in “protective custody” but he could not have done his work that way. What would you have done at that time to protect him?

    I must also disagree about the shame to our culture. The injustice he fought was a shame to our culture but we honored his legacy and changed the laws. The perversion of his philosophy by liberals with the complicity of his family is a shame to our culture because we allow and enable it. The killing was not done or sanctioned by our culture, quite the contrary. That shame or guilt is misplaced, Sir.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  53. -Comment by daleyrocks — 8/24/2011 @ 11:22 am-

    Thank you, Sir. I have to agree with you.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  54. Dude looks white to me.

    His features are not, but the color of the stone used sure is.

    Whitey always co-opts the best for their own, eh? Ya think Jesus was caucasian?

    It’s a conspiracy.

    Ed from SFV (7d7851)

  55. The killing was not done or sanctioned by our culture, quite the contrary.

    Great point, Machinist.

    A somewhat less grant point is that those building a statue are not those who should be ashamed that MLK was assassinated. They are polar opposites.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  56. My comments aren’t showing up.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  57. Oh wait never mind.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  58. Unbelievable that this was approved. Its hideous.

    SPQR (26188f)

  59. Mao, with a different head.

    Bigfoot (8096f2)

  60. Machinist,

    We were a culture in which a man with MLK’s message was murdered. Maybe we couldn’t have been any better at the time. Maybe we were, in that moment, the best culture on earth. It is STILL shame to us, and a goad to move us forward.

    I’m not saying we should wallow in grief, remorse, and self-disgust. I’m saying that awareness of our past failings, while moving forward, is the right frame of mind. I don’t beat my breast and discard the good aspects of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers because they had slaves. But I don’t pretend that it doesn’t matter, either.

    Ed from SFV,

    You know, if they used brown or black stone, they would be accused of Racism. They can’t win. Maybe that’s why a Chinese artist was used; maybe nobody in the United States wanted this particular hot potato.

    C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968)

  61. Maybe we couldn’t have been any better at the time. Maybe we were, in that moment, the best culture on earth. It is STILL shame to us, and a goad to move us forward.

    One way to look at it is that you do not have to be ashamed of the bad elements whose bad deeds you are not responsible for. You can learn from the mistakes made and be a better person.

    One way to do that is to listen to what MLK said about character. One way not to do that is to charge people shame-tax for what someone else did.

    You’re right we should not whitewash history, but just because something terrible happened does not mean the society wanted that to happen. Most terrible things happen in spite of society. The society around MLK make peaceful protests a viable strategy. We actually should be very proud.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  62. -Comment by C. S. P. Schofield — 8/24/2011 @ 11:53 am-

    So you are saying that any act by any one individual represents the whole culture? I must strongly disagree. If I accept your premise then the existence of one child molester, even if he is caught and punished, means we are a culture that allowed child molesters and should be ashamed for that. No!!!

    Our culture and our Republic is based on the idea of individual accountability. I can not blame my actions on someone else and I am not responsible for the actions of someone else. I only bear shame if I enable or support that man’s actions or protect him from the rightful consequences. It is that shared social responsibility that leads to social rights rather than individual rights. Our culture sanctioned slavery but it also fought, died, and lost loved ones ending it. Slaves did not rise up and fight for and win their freedom. Free white Americans died and lost loved ones to do that. The descendents of those who ended slavery do not owe either reparations or shame to the descendents of the people they freed.

    The civil rights acts and voting rights acts were not passed by Southern blacks but by white people. I owe no shame or reparations to the people that gained their rights from that.

    I ask again, how would you have protected MLK? What should our culture have been like to make his assassination impossible?

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  63. I want to honor what MLK did and stood for, not pay blood money out of guilt or shame.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  64. “The killing was not done or sanctioned by our culture, quite the contrary.”

    Absolutely!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  65. It’s ultimately God’s fault for allowing people to have free will.

    I hope He’s ashamed of Himself.

    Pious Agnostic (291f9a)

  66. MLK was a Communist sympathizer. It’s entirely appropriate for the Red Chinese to return the favor.

    By the way, may I ask why my previous comment was not approved? Are we not allowed to post facts that paint King in a less flattering light?

    Chris (5fc583)

  67. “I’m not saying we should wallow in grief, remorse, and self-disgust.”

    C. S. P. Schofield – You are saying exactly that by suggesting as a culture and society we need to feel a collective sense of national shame for the actions of a lone gunman and pay graft to the family of a civil right icon, but move forward at the same time. I don’t share your sentiments.

    I feel a deep sense of national shame that people like Maxine Waters and Barbara Jackson Lee are in Congress. Are you with me there?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  68. Chris is a pretty boring troll.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  69. daleyrocks,

    Oh, HELL yes!

    I think what I’m fumbling for is that I can be proud AND shamed by my country’s history at the same time. I am VERY proud of the Union in the Civil War. I am ashamed that it was necessary. I am proud of the great men who wrote the Constitution, which is still the most radically revolutionary document ever adopted in all seriousness are a framework for government. I am, if not ashamed, then aware and NOT proud that the majority of those Great Men started to try to weasel around the limitations in the constitution before the ink had time to dry.

    I am not a Western Intellectual Twit who “praises in enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this, and every country but his own.”. At the same time, I am not a Manifest Destinarian who thinks that all (or most) of the Nations History shows the clear signs of being under God’s Hand.

    C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968)

  70. Dr. King was a man of peace, not Conan the Destroyer. This rendering is hideous and insulting to the memory of this great man.

    ohiochili (9a2b52)

  71. By the way, may I ask why my previous comment was not approved? Are we not allowed to post facts that paint King in a less flattering light?
    Comment by Chris — 8/24/2011 @ 12:17 pm

    They went to spam, not sure why. I don’t refresh every 5 minutes or check the spam filter that often unless someone brings it to my attention, so both your comments sat there for a while. Given the unsupported racist bombs you tend to throw and your unwarranted assumptions about being moderated, Patterico can fish them out if he wants. I’m not inclined to let you threadjack again with your racist crap.

    Stashiu3 (601b7d)

  72. “MLK was a Communist sympathizer.”

    Chris – Wasn’t he also a Republican? Denounce away!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  73. If MLK is considered for Sainthood then all aspects of his life are fair game. I want him honored for what he did, which was considerable, and done at great risk and cost to himself. His personal failings don’t alter what he achieved or what I feel I owe him as a proud American.

    The same tends to apply to the current fashion of denigrating our founders, judging them by today’s PC standards. In some cases like Washington, the men are so great that they still have to make stuff up.

    Stashiu3, thank you for the break, however long it lasts. This thread has been refreshingly free of troll spoor so far. The disagreements have been reasoned and in good faith. Very nice.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  74. I feel a deep sense of national shame that people like Maxine Waters and Barbara Jackson Lee the teabaggers are in Congress.

    Spartacvs (4576a2)

  75. You spoke too soon, Machinist.

    JD (318f81)

  76. Guilty, Sir.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  77. C.S.P. made a Gilbert and Sullivan reference- The Mikado, one of my favorites..

    felipe (2ec14c)

  78. I can assure people my comment was not race related and it was in fact sourced.

    Do you people seriously deny King was a Communist ally with all his Communist associations, denunciations of U.S. foreign policy, and constant appeals to class warfare?

    King was not significantly involved in ending segregation, which was outlawed in 1954, years before he became significant. I’d like to ask people here what exactly King accomplished that warrants any special mention whatsoever.

    Chris (5fc583)

  79. Machinist, I too, have been enjoying the sublime concord exhibited on this thread. I find it good that commenters can express honest thoughts and receive civil and spirited replies.

    I need to see all of the statue. In person. to view it in context before I feel comfortable giving my opinion about it. Otherwise I feel I am only critiqueing the photo.

    felipe (2ec14c)

  80. “Do you people seriously deny King was Obama is a Communist ally with all his Communist associations, denunciations mishandling of U.S. foreign policy, and constant appeals to class warfare? -Chris

    FIFY

    felipe (2ec14c)

  81. Do you people seriously deny King was a Communist ally with all his Communist associations, denunciations of U.S. foreign policy, and constant appeals to class warfare?

    MLK didn’t agree with US Foreign policy.

    SO WHAT? No one cares about that.

    This country needs heroes, and on the cause of seeing beyond race, MLK is a hero. He died for his country. He doesn’t have to be perfect, or agree on 100% of things, to be a hero.

    MLK was not a communist. J Edgar tried to find evidence he was, and failed. Fact is that the commies did want to coopt the civil rights movement. That has more or less occurred, but MLK wasn’t the reason.

    If you have no idea what MLK accomplished, you’re an idiot. I can’t waste my time with you.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  82. The idiot who, in railway carriages,
    Scribbles on window-panes,
    We only suffer
    To ride on a buffer
    In Parliamentary trains.

    The 1844 version of “troll”.

    htom (412a17)

  83. Dustin,
    Nice comment but “This honors the unworthy”.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  84. You are so right, htom. Schwenk was on to something.

    felipe (2ec14c)

  85. -Comment by felipe — 8/24/2011 @ 1:36 pm-

    Very fair and sensible of you. I don’t care for the pictures I have seen from different angles but my taste in art is so bad I can’t say it is good or bad, only that I don’t care much for it. I’ll leave that judgement to others, I am just glad to see him being honored in this way. I think too many forget the loud calls for violence from the real communist race agitators at the time and I think MLK deserves much credit for defusing and discrediting those voices and the violence they wanted to promote. This is why the bigots and the race hustlers hated him and wanted him killed. It is a tribute to his success and effectiveness.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  86. It looks like Juan Williams.

    Arch (0baa7b)

  87. Nice comment but “This honors the unworthy”.

    Comment by Machinist

    Yeah.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  88. Before reading anything about the sculptor, I commented to my wife that the statue looked like it belonged in North Korea, because it had that Fearless Leader quality endemic to statues of dictators.

    IOW, some small changes and it would be of Mao.

    bud (8d8936)

  89. Comment by Dustin — 8/24/2011 @ 10:39 am

    MLK’s loss was a loss for every white and black person in America.

    If Martin Luther King hadn’t been assassinated, we wouldn’t be using the word black today, and we’d probably still be using Negro, because that change happenend only over his dead body. He was very opposed to “black” and most of the otehr alternatives are too long.

    Sammy Finkelman (d3daeb)

  90. I’m just happy a Republican can still get a statue in the Capital. Shouldn’t they have hired a Republican sculptor though?

    starboardhelm (d2c909)

  91. SpartacBS can go straight to hell.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  92. If there weren’t so many people telling me it was Dr. King, I would think it was a third world dictator’s statue overlooking a roundabout somewhere in Africa or Central Asia.

    Sweetbriar (dc8a9e)

  93. “It might be something tradionally used in China for indicating a scholar (this folded up paper would be the paper he wrote on)”

    That would be ironic, wouldn’t it.

    stari_momak (5fd7ae)

  94. _______________________________________________

    Wanting to have it made in America isn’t wrong, however, but let me posit this.

    Even more so since the Chinese sculptor didn’t do such a great job.

    Your photo cuts off the lower part of the King statue, or the representation of its suit jacket and pants. That section looks rushed and clumsy to me — and is what’s most noticeable as a reflection of something second-rate (and not whether the statue’s face looks Chinese or not) — and reminds me of one of those cheesy tolitarian-state-sponsored stoneworks that are homages to leaders like Mao, Stalin, Hitler or Hussein.

    The MLK statue is sort of a bringing together of ongoing, pathetic socio-political-economic symbols in the early 21st century. It is being unveiled during a moment when the US has its first black president, but one who is tarnished with a “goddamn America” ideology, is grappling with an ascendant People’s Republic of China (not to mention India, Brazil), is facing years of jobs and work being sent abroad, and a black populace still bogged down by a high percentage of dysfunction (eg, chronic unemployment, broken homes, poor academic achievement, incidents of flash-mob looting and stealing) that’s not much less (or, actually, even far greater) in 2011 than when King was alive and the idea of civil rights was still in its infancy.

    The statue also is being unveiled when America itself seems dazed and tired after having experienced decades of mindless liberalism interwoven with political correctness run amok, and a sense that its better days and truly great figures of history are more of the past than the present, much less the future.

    A facet of this: the only person in US history who currently has a major holiday named in his honor is NOT Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, etc (and Christopher Columbus doesn’t count), but Martin Luther King Jr.

    Mark (411533)

  95. Commie art on the mall. Great. Yeah.

    Estragon (ec6a4b)

  96. He was very opposed to “black” and most of the otehr alternatives are too long.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelma

    I think it’s a stupid term too. I think it’s actually pretty silly that we even care if someone’s black or white, but those are the words in the language now, and they have no meaning we don’t give them.

    It’s just skin. I don’t go around calling people blondes or detached-earlobe-people. It’s just stupid. MLK got it, I’m sure you do too. I think Machinist has a point that MLK’s real message is being erased because of this great point.

    Dustin (b7410e)

  97. The leftoids are pathetic.

    They say all pro-lifers are clinic bombers.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  98. “It’s just skin. I don’t go around calling people blondes or detached-earlobe-people. It’s just stupid. MLK got it, I’m sure you do too. I think Machinist has a point that MLK’s real message is being erased because of this great point.”

    A) As any forensic anthropologist can tell you, race goes to the bone.

    B) We’ll never know, but I suspect that had MLK lived, his ‘message’ would be pretty much identical to Jesse Jackson’s. People hear one line from one speech — a speech in which King was telling northern white American what it wanted to hear, what he needed it to hear to gain its support. However, before he died he was pushing ‘Great Society’ type programs , etc. Heck, he was in Memphis to

    stari_momak (5fd7ae)

  99. support a strike by unionized public workers — that should send you folks here into a tizzy right there.

    stari_momak (5fd7ae)

  100. You community agitators errrrrrr organizers have stabbed MLK in the back.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  101. And us big bad evil imperialists……………you scum leftoids make me sick.

    DohBiden (d54602)

  102. stari_momak – It is a good thing you don’t over tax your mind by thinking too hard.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  103. The portrayal of MLK today in popular culture has been carefully sanitized. For example we are endlessly bombarded with clips from the MLK 1963 speech at the Lincoln memorial. As if that was all there was of importance to know about MLK.

    But the MLK of 1967 was not the same man as the one seen in 1963. I was shocked when I read the content of the speech he gave in 1967. Read it for yourself.

    http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

    MLK wasn’t just opposed to the Vietnam War. He condemned America as the greatest agent of evil in the world. Heck, he all but said he sided with the enemy, and hoped for a worldwide marxist revolution.

    In light of this truth, I find it entirely appropriate that the new MLK monument was carved and manufactured by citizens from Red China. How fitting.

    Brad (064d50)

  104. Ok, so, in my life away from the computer, I work in the art world. And my problem with this statue is that it really seems cheep compared to other, older artwork in and around DC. And no, I don’t think it was appropriate to hire someone from overseas to design the monument.

    From an artistic standpoint, I find it lacking. What is the meaning behind having the monument appear unfinished? Did the artist get bored with the piece and decide that half-done was twice-the-fun? It would be one thing if this were something carved from the side of a mountain in bas relief. As it is, it looks like someone made a half-hearted attempt to carve his face from a piece of cheese, and then just left it out in the sun.

    In addition, while his face is described adequately in the stone, I find the folds of the fabric and the definition of his limbs lacking. It looks as if the sculptor used a mannequin to model for him. There is no life to this statue, and very little to like about it.

    King deserved much better. Unfortunately, I don’t blame the administration or any other political entity for this. Modern art being what it is these days, perhaps this was the best they could do.

    Book (c7b6c5)

  105. “From an artistic standpoint, I find it lacking. What is the meaning behind having the monument appear unfinished?”

    Yeah, Rodin would never have done something like this.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  106. Comment by daleyrocks — 8/25/2011 @ 8:56 am

    Seriously. That can hardly be compared to a Rodin. Rodin knew anatomy and drapery. This person knows play-doh.

    //takes off her snob hat.

    ///but for reals. No.

    Book (c7b6c5)

  107. Looks like he is saying” I am done with Peace and Love crap, It is time to Kick butt”

    Bette Kibble (b6713d)


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