Black artists are angry that a black sculptor wasn’t chosen to sculpt a monument to racial equality and harmony. Irony?
King promoted peace and understanding among all people. His primary fight, however, was to win particular opportunities for blacks in the United States by juxtaposing the plight of an oppressed people against a message of freedom and democracy.
A loose-knit but growing group of critics says a black artist — or at least an American — should have been chosen to create the King memorial between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials in the nation’s capital. They have been joined by human rights advocates who say King would have abhorred the Chinese government’s record on religious and civil liberty.
“They keep saying King was for everyone. I keep telling people, ‘No, King wasn’t for everyone. King was for fairness and justice,”‘ said Gilbert Young, a black painter from Atlanta who has started a Web site and a petition drive to try to change the project.
“I believe that black artists have the right to interpret ourselves first,” Young said. “If nobody steps up to the plate to do that, then certainly pass it along to someone else.” [source]
Maybe they have a point. And then again, maybe they’re just being racist. A twelve person panel (ten of them were black) chose a Chinese sculptor to carve a three story monument to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This of course is a problem for people who thing that preference should have been given to a black sculptor. Giving someone special preference based on skin color…why that isn’t racist?
Let me rephrase that. Giving a person preferential treatment based solely on skin color IS racist. It’s the very definition of racism. For any black man or woman to think that it’s not racism is just plain stupid. It’s like saying up is down and freedom is oppression. Have we forgotten the message of Dr. King already?
Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: – ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.‘
I’m sure that I don’t understand the plight of black people, and yeah, I’m probably a racist for thinking that skin color shouldn’t be an issue when choosing a sculptor to build a monument for a man who fought for racial equality. But just like Dr. King said, I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
