So let me get this straight - the long-awaited D.C. memorial to a man who led the struggle for civil rights by engaging in nonviolent confrontation is being held up because some suit somewhere thinks the statue for the memorial is too confrontational? Dude, Dr. King was confrontational. That's what made him great - the courage to confront without being violent. If he's confrontational and not holding a knife, I think that's just about the best statue of Dr. King you could come up with.
What do you want to memorialize, some sanitized version of Dr. King that makes him look like all he did was hold hands and sing Kumbaya and segregation ended? Or should we memorialize the man who stood up to the evils of segregation, looked the Southern white establishment in the eye, and refused to blink? Sheesh...
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Did you read the article? They're not asking for a non-confrontational statute, they're asking for one that isn't derrived from soviet-era propoganda. Did you look at the picture? He looks like a grumpy old commie, not a powerful and persuasive force for change. King was confrontational, yes. But he was also persuasive and loving. He wasn't the stern authoritarian figure seen in that statue. I for one am glad the commission wants to get it right before it goes up. It's not like they're holding it up indefinetly - they want this memorial. They just want it to actually be a tribue to King.
There's a second picture in the slideshow. It's of the model the commission originally approved. It's also confrontational, but much more well done than the big model they're objecting to. Check it out, and tell me you don't agree that the earlier model is better.
I'm not entirely sure I see the difference between the two pictures.
I do agree that we shouldn't sanitize King's confrontational nature, but nevertheless perhaps it was a massively stupid PR move to have a guy known for doing statutes of Mao do King's statue.
Ben - Look at the detail in the face, and how the original model was much more gentle (yet still very firm), whereas the new model is a less detailed face, with more of a grumpy look than anything else. The new model is also much more square and basic, ala communist propoganda. Looking at the first one doesn't give you the soviet-era feel that the second one gives you.
I gotta be honest. It doesn't bother me that it's confrontational, it just bothers me that it's a crappy design in general. It doesn't look like it captures King's animation nor his spirit.
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