Monday, January 18, 2010

#227. The Martin Luther King Jr. Monument


Soon to stand resolute in the same city where monuments to racist slaveholders attract millions every year will be the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. This towering memorial to Martin Luther King will be erected to remind all of the sins of Pre-Obama America and the still unfulfilled promise of Mr. King’s “I have a Dream” from finally coming to fruition… at some point.

You see, invoking the famous Martin Luther King “I have a Dream” speech and praising the eventuality of reaching the infamous “content of character instead of color of skin” racially blind society fails to consider the actuality that Black people are desirous of living in a society completely devoid of merit.

If the axiom Martin Luther King (MLK) uttered so long ago were to be fully integrated in 2010, Black people would find themselves in a perilous situation, much worse than what they faced in 1963. Recall, the primary reason Michael Oher was adopted – he was a large, homeless Black male who could play football – and the underlying justification for billions of dollars being sent to prop up the failed Black state of Haiti – so that a Black person-led nation won’t collapse – have absolutely nothing to do with character at all. Just color.

Black people know this monument in Washington DC is not the crowning achievement of some superficial “I have a Dream” movement or the culmination of a century’s old struggle to “overcome” racism in all its insidious forms. All the monument represents is a perverse “wet dream” by disingenuous white liberals (DWLs) who see MLK as an embodiment of the Token Black whose elocution was coherent enough and scholarship ever so close to being original, that he could pass as the righteous leader whom all who come after would find no fault in.

Indeed, hagiographers of King’s life we all are now. Just like those who will stand in awe of the 30-foot statue of his likeness that will soon grace the nation mall in Washington DC, the giant shadow he casts over history acts as a get-out-of-jail card for all Black people and any porous behavior on their part.

“Judge by the content of character,” is the reply levied by any Black person, DWL or other person confronted with Hate Facts.

However, the ingratiating and sycophantic manner in which DWLs heap love and admiration toward MLK doesn’t persuade Black people that his mission has been accomplished, nor that it should be finalized.

Black people instinctively understand racism will never be overcome in the United States, regardless of the concessions made by a placid white population bent on appeasing their Black overseers in any way, shape or form.

Even with the election of Mein Obama, Black people realize that calling a cease-fire in the Civil Rights struggle would amount to capitulation in the war to “shakedown” America and keep a true meritocracy – what MLK envisioned in his famous “I have a Dream” speech – from ever being implemented in this nation.

Regardless, Black people know the statue gives them a foot-print finally in Washington DC, since so many people consider Benjamin Banneker’s work on designing that city a myth and visitors to the district will see the true founding father of America honored finally:

“Atlanta resident Lea Winfrey Young says the "outsourcing" by U.S. companies and organizations to China has gone too far this time. She and her husband, Gilbert Young, a painter, are leading a group of critics who argue that an African American -- or any American -- should have been picked for such an important project.

"Dr. King's statue is to be shipped here in a crate that supposedly says 'Made in China.' That's just obscene," Winfrey Young says…

The statue Lei is creating -- which at 28 feet will be a full nine feet taller than the statue in the Jefferson Memorial -- will be the centerpiece of the tribute to King. The memorial will span four acres near the Tidal Basin between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, facing Jefferson.

Visitors will first walk through a grove of spruce and magnolia trees by a waterfall and read a selection of the civil rights leader's famous words carved on walls. At the end of their walk, they will see King's likeness emerging from a chunk of granite.

Lei said there was much internal debate at the foundation about how King should look. Some thought the statue should reflect King as an ambassador of peace. Some wanted to present his urbane, intellectual side. Still others wanted to make him into a towering heroic figure. "If there are 1,000 readers of 'Hamlet,' " Lei said, "you will have 1,000 interpretations."

The cost of the MLK statue is a paltry $120 million, thankfully paid for by gracious individuals and corporations bent on paying homage to the Patron Saint of Diversity, MLK, so that these “sacrifices” will bold well for their futures, much like sacrifices to the Gods of old. Sadly, of those who have paid monetary tribute to the MLK statue, a shocking percentage have gone bankrupt, including General Motors, Lehman Brothers and the Circuit City Foundation, not to mention Fannie May.

The checks cleared thankfully from those ill-fated company’s and the MLK statue will be chiseled into reality by a Chinaman, whose final vision of the 20th century’s most towering individual is one criticized for its artistically bellicose nature:

“A powerful federal arts commission is urging that the sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. proposed for a memorial on the Tidal Basin be reworked because it is too "confrontational" and reminiscent of political art in totalitarian states.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks "the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries," commission secretary Thomas Luebke said in a letter in April.”

This is precisely how Black people want MLK to be recalled, as an “angry Black man” defiant to the end and even in death, continuing the war upon white people and America, for no amount of mea culpa’s from white people can absolve them of their collective racist past.

Black people will not rest though, until those iconic monuments to white people are removed from Washington DC, for these statues represent a true totalitarian past and a vivid, constant reminder of the historic stain that haunts the soul of Black folks’.

Still, the MLK monument is included in the register of Stuff Black People Don’t Like, for at only 30-feet the statue will hardly compare to the Washington or Lincoln Memorials. Overshadowed by white people is one thing, but overshadowed by slave-holding and racist white people is a sin heads must roll over.





8 comments:

Phalluster said...

indeed, MLK desired racial quotas wherever applicable. if 30% of a city's residents are black, blacks should occupy 30% of that city's jobs. if a city employs blacks at only a 29% clip, job applicants would not be judged by any content within their character.

i would propose that the statue of MLK portray him making love to several women at a time, tastefully of course.

here is some worthwhile discussion of how to remember king:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/015376.html

Anonymous said...

You know, to me, it looks like MLK is emerging from a block of milk chocolate for a Hershey's commercial.
I'd say, that statues that feature black figures need rows of DWL people on knees, bowing down to them in order to slightly placate "critics".

Anonymous said...

Phalluster,

Black "conservatives" say he was a Republican, and now he supports racial quotas. What's next?

-Black guy

Anonymous said...

I can think of a dozen or so blacks that are more deserving of a monument than "Doctor" King, but I'm in agreement with you that it shouldn't be in D.C. It should be in a black neighborhood.

As you can tell I really hate phony white "liberals"

-Black guy

Phalluster said...

Black guy,

I have never heard King mentioned as a republican, but I do not doubt that such claims have been made by black conservatives to bolster their own image. His famous speech was certainly Randian in nature, but not consistent with the quota system that has become the rallying cry of feminism. In addition to a sexualized perception, being a black man and all, King is really a feminist's perfect catch.

It is difficult to glean the humbling "facts" about King's private life, as they are still mostly passed along exclusively amongst overt white racists. Still, this is a stark contrast to fashionable public opinion of Columbus, who has no shortage of defamatory commentary each October. So much for Columbus to apologize for after 500 years, yet 40 years has scrubbed clean the MLK legacy.

As Columbus grows in infamy, so too does MLK ascend to sainthood. Hallelujah!

Anonymous said...

Phalluster,

I really don't understand all of the crying, sensitivity, or "controversy" over this Columbus guy. I'm an avid reader and a fan of history, and despite all of this guy's "accomplishments" I find his story very boring and irrelevant to my life. Besides, he wasn't even an American.

The only people who actually "liked" MLK were phony white " liberals " and naive Negroes that were stupid enough to believe that marching and singing "We shall overcome" meant anything

-Black guy

mark said...

A fact which should be emphasized more is the Social Realist aesthetic which is pronounced in the sculpture.
I am somewhat frightened by the Leninesque visage of MLK. Even more, I am bothered by the implications of this piece, which places an important time in American history in the strange hands of a Chinese national interpretation. I am not a chauvinist but the final look of the piece definitely recalls some work done to commemorate the completion of a dam in China or something similar. Quite odd.
But then again the Vietnam memorial is a very hostile piece as well, done by an Asian with weak-to-no credentials. On that work, my opinions are strong. First: it is an ironic "V" for victory.Defeat was the historically accepted outcome and the deaths of our combatants is celebrated. The "V" itself is a low angled one, resembling a sick or perhaps Satanic grin. Or perhaps the single chevron of a PFC; for after all we are in death's democracy.
Second,the earth, not the marble ( suitably a mortal black) is the setting; the earth of course is the destination of the dead. The monument does not lead us into the air, where in Western Civilization we feel the spirit has gone. These dead are only bodies to the artist.
Thus, this memorial is actually a representation of a mass grave. Perhaps we are actually not mourning here the American dead but rather the dead of an anonymous Vietnamese village destroyed by American shelling or bombing.
The dead are not even commemorated with the living in mind; they are not alphabetically arranged, which would convenience the visitors. Rather, they are arranged by date of death, as if to make the pain of the living and their shock at finding the sought-out name even more intense and the awareness of the futility of the war more clear. The visitor descends and ascends with no thematic meaning involved. This is also an affront to the living since it provides no release of emotion for having worked to find the name so dreadfully placed.
Ultimately I view this monument for what it is: a statement by the Establishment that this is what you get when you inconvenience the sons of the privileged in your stupid prole wars.

Anonymous said...

why waste that money on a statue, whats a statue going to do, it wont feed,clothe or house anyone . Its stupid and an impractical use of 120 million dollars. if Hatti was an issue use that money to help them.