Comments on: Is King memorial debate a race issue?

By: Richard Melvin

Richard Melvin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

When I read this article I had mixed feelings about the content until I viewed Lei Yixin’s sculptures. When I earned my degrees in painting and sculpture I had the opportunity to study with Chinese students and found them to be technically proficient. A little known fact is one of the prime models Chinese artists study is Michelanglo’s ‘David’. This student could paint the David from almost every perspective without seeing the sculpture. Plus it is fascinating to note that the Chinese school of socialist realism would choose such a model for study.

All is all the monument is in very skilled hands.

By: Bill Robinson

Bill Robinson — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.
You complainers should shut the f up. Be happy that China is generous enough to donate a memorial and provide a sculptor.
I can’t believe you are so ungrateful as to bitch that some black wasn’t the sculptor. You are disgusting.

By: ron kay

ron kay — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

……means, mainly right wing decision makers…so Karl Rove, figures out another way to piss off and disenfranchise people of color.

Why does this surprise you ?? It’s merely Bushie Business as Usual.

By: erika morgan

erika morgan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Historically public art was supported as a way of contributing to the local economy and raising the standard of living of the local common man. The choice of artist was also considered an art form and an integral contribution to the emotional facet of the final product. It is this emotional contribution that makes art what it is intended to be instead of just a technical copy that any machine could produce. The artist must be emotionally linked to the subject for it to have any value whatsoever. Support of foreign technicians is devoid of any value and their products are worthless. There is little doubt that the current distain for the plebiscite is responsible for the entertaining of a chinaman working a statue of Dr. M.L.King.

By: bob

bob — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

MLK was a commie pinko too, so this is just befitting. Why is a commie being glorified on US soil?

By: Ross

Ross — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

You taint everything King stood for when you bitch about a nonblack sculpting the memorial. King stood for equality, not black rights.

Martin Luther King stood for all oppressed peoples of the world, and the only irony here is that a man from an unfree country should be making a monument to someone who would abhor the civil rights situation there.

Coming up with a website like kingisours is especially stupid. So now we’re arguing about who “owns” a man who stood for freedom.

People like that are the reason King’s dream will probably never come true.

By: lwyoung

lwyoung — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lea Winfrey Young for
Gilbert Young, the artist

To all who have taken the time to write, my husband Gilbert Young and I salute you. Your responses tell us that we were right when we sat down to write the commentary “A Chinese Martin Luther King,” last March. We knew we would not stand alone.

Ross, your naivete is running rampant. You wrote “You taint everything King stood for when you bitch about a nonblack sculpting the memorial. King stood for equality, not black rights.” It’s obvious the only knowledge you have of King and the Civil Rights movement is what somebody made you read during black history month at school. You obviously have never experienced ANYTHING like the events that were taking place in this country that led King to become the icon he became. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

We’d like you to know more of the facts. You must make sure to get the facts straight. There was competition for the DESIGN of the King monument/memorial. More than 900 entrants (each paying $75 to apply) hoped to win the chance to immortalize King in D.C. The ROMA group, a white owned firm out of San Francisco, won the “blind” competition. They were assisted with their entry (fortunately for them) by Dr. Clayborne Carson, director of the King Research Institute.

The sculptor from Communist China, Lei Yixin was CHOSEN. There was NO competition for the sculptor. In fact, Lei Yixin was originally brought onto the project as a sub-contractor. Ed Dwight, who is African American, created the original models for the monument. On another site, someone with the screen name “Quevin” wrote, “Have you seen this artists work? Itâ€™s STUNNING. MASTERFUL. MOVING…”

Quevin was actually complementing Ed Dwight.
Yixin was brought in to take the model from a 12 inch maquette to a monumental granite sculpture, which he is known for. The dirty part of all of this is that after years of working with the King Foundation, Ed Dwight was kicked to the curb. The contract–along with the designation “Artist of Record” meaning he could put his name on it–went to Yixin along with a contract for Chinese granite.

This isn’t about Dr. King being “a man for all people.” We all know that. But guess what…All people were not for King. Which is why he died on that balcony fighting for the end of Jim Crow, segregation, racism, prejudiced busing, church bombings, lynchings and all the rest.

The next time you want to include “all the world” in admiration of King’s philosophy, take a look at the donor list on the King monument site and write down the names of the foreign countries that have donated to the King Monument.
We as African Americans are charged with the task of carrying on and preserving the legacy, history and culture of African American people. What better way than to claim the right to present OUR history the way WE see fit?