A Stone-Faced Lie on the Mall
By Ibram Rogers | TheRoot.com

I heard about this on NPR originally (I'm hoping that Michel Martin picks this up on Tell Me More), but this morning in the Root.com there was an opinion article about it that I really agree with (although I have reservations about calling King a "militant", I think that label contradicts King's pacifist message unless you want to parse it away from its connotations of violence). The general story is that the US Commission of Fine Arts is asking the sculptor Lei Yixin designing the Washington monument of Rev. King to make the civil rights leader look less confrontational and more smiling and idealistic. More of a dreamer and (in my opinion) less of the much feared "angry black man" which is getting so much press lately with the Rev. Wright bullpoopy. As far as I can tell, this is more of the same kind of false and disingenuous ameliorating that seeks to deny and cover up the very real impact and continuation of institutionalized racism in this country. Overall I think that plays into the hands of an over-arching public narrative that wants to delegitimate the righteous anger of anyone suffering under institutionalized structures of exclusion based on race, religion, class, sex, gender, sexual orientation and disability. I hope someone can stop this, I'm going to look around for the email addresses of the commission or a petition somewhere, I'll pass it along once I find something.

Update: Neal Conan covered this on Blog of the Nation, including a good interview with Ibraim Rogers.