Martin Luther King Memorial: Tribute or Travesty?

[scotpens]

Link to New York Times article

The recently completed Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on the Washington Mall has generated a lot of negative reactions. What do you think? Is it a fitting tribute to the man who led the struggle for racial equality in America, or does it look more like a monument to a communist or fascist dictator?

 

[B.J.]

They've frozen him in carbonite!

Joking aside, the sculptor is Chinese, and it's obvious to me that his own heritage and culture had an effect on his design.

 

[Roger Wilco]

I think it looks good, but why did they use white stone?

 

[scotpens]

I think it looks good, but why did they use white stone?

Well, to be fair, most monumental sculptures are in whitish or light gray stone. I mean, nobody has marble-colored skin, right?

 

[Admiral Shran]

That's the best design they could come up with?

 

[Roger Wilco]

I think it looks good, but why did they use white stone?

Well, to be fair, most monumental sculptures are in whitish or light gray stone. I mean, nobody has marble-colored skin, right?

I guess it was important to the people who paid for it that it fit in with all the other monuments in that area, but still, making MLK white is a little uncomfortable imo. It reminds me of people like Beck claiming he was a conservative. There are many other kinds of stone with a little bit of color too.

 

[Myasishchev]

Glenn Beck claimed the most prominent socialist leader in America since Euguene Debs was a conservative? Jesus.

Anyway, I like the monument. And white stone has been traditional in monumental art since the Renaissance or maybe Rome, I forget. I remember the Greeks painted up their statues and monuments with all sorts of stupid colors, though. Let's not do that. I guess it could have been bronze, but whatever.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Yes, of course, because in his mind it was the liberal democrat fascists who were against civil rights for black Americans (the same democrats who still keep blacks in bondage through foodstamps, social security and medicare/medicaid) and it was only thanks to christian conservative Republicans like King that equal rights were achieved, and this legacy is now being followed by Beck himself. Or something like that.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

They've frozen him in carbonite!

Joking aside, the sculptor is Chinese, and it's obvious to me that his own heritage and culture had an effect on his design.

LOL, my first though upon seeing it was that is does look a bit Mao-ish.

 

[RJDiogenes]

The stone is fine. Using some kind of dark stone would have been cringe-worthy. But what's weird is his stance. Having his arms crossed like that is the wrong body language-- he wasn't about shutting people out, he was about bringing people together.

 

[Sean Aaron]

I like the sculpture, but think that something based upon him heading a march with others arm-in-arm might have been truer to his deeds as RJ says.

He is probably the greatest of my childhood heroes so I'm pleased to see him take a place among Presidents. I'd like to think, had he not been assassinated, that he might have been the first black President, actually.

 

[Goliath]

Meh. Neither tribute nor travesty, in my opinion. Just kind of mediocre.

 

[JarodRussell]

What's the problem?

 

[Squiggy]

Meh. Neither tribute nor travesty, in my opinion. Just kind of mediocre.

Ditto. If you want travesty Google "Eisenhower Memorial".

 

[Sean Aaron]

If you want travesty Google "Eisenhower Memorial".

I don't know if it's a travesty, but frankly I don't know what it is - a bunch of giant mirrors?

 

[ManOnTheWave]

It's a new monument. There will be bitching. There will be whining. 30 years from now it will be just another monument millions of tourists will visit on their walk around the basin.

The unfinished look of the thing fits in perfectly with the concept of the contest mentioned in the article.

 

[Sean Aaron]

It's a new monument. There will be bitching. There will be whining. 30 years from now it will be just another monument millions of tourists will visit on their walk around the basin.

I was thinking this as well - same as when a new building goes up: people complain, say they hate it and in ten years they're boasting about how it adds to the skyline.

 

[auntiehill]

I kind of like it. It shows him as unwavering---a rock that can't be moved. He was dedicated to the cause of equal rights, to human rights, which should be the core of any nation's philosophy--so he's shown as part of the rock, like he's part of the Earth itself, or the country itself.

But, yeah, I can see what people are saying about the body language. Something a bit more serene might have been better, but then people would have probably complained about it being boring.

 

[Galileo7]

They've frozen him in carbonite!

Joking aside, the sculptor is Chinese, and it's obvious to me that his own heritage and culture had an effect on his design.

LOL, my first though upon seeing it was that is does look a bit Mao-ish.

Agreed.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I think the man deserves a memorial...but I think he deserved a better one than this. There is something unnecessarily cold and forbidding about this, especially with the body language and facial expression. That's not the impression I've ever gotten from his writing and speeches; he seemed like a more welcoming individual than that.

I think perhaps they were trying to incorporate the concept of the strength inherent in passive resistance (such as with sit-ins and so on), but failed in their objectives.

I think that had I been doing this, I would've opted for something more relatable. Ironically, the model I have in mind was controversial in its own time, but what I imagined a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial to be before I saw this was a bit more like the statue of the Vietnam soldiers that is next to the Wall. Something that seems more like a picture from a march, that seems more in media res, where you can read the combination of hope and anxiety that I'm sure people were feeling in those days. A snapshot from history, in other words. I think that might have embodied the objective of showing that race relations are still a work in progress that they might've been going for here.

But I think showing him, and perhaps some others with him (perhaps family members who joined him?), like a shot out of a history book, would've been much more engaging and more true to what he did.