I've got a rare moment and opportunity to bring to the attention of the wider blogosphere as well as my radio connections, the deeply held convictions of Clint Button, associated with the 'King Is Ours' movement. Mr Button is a stonecutter in a great family and American tradition who is immersed in the complicated controversy surrounding the MLK Memorial in our nation's capital. There is a lot more than meets the eye here, and I am coming to understand some of the complexities involved.
My fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, has been involved for many years along with others dedicated to making this monument a reality.
Recently, the mayor of Barre, VT met with some of the team involved in making the project real.
Mayor Thomas Lauzon met this week in Washington, D.C., with the executive architect on the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial project to make a case for the use of Barre granite in the four-acre monument.
Lauzon said Thursday that he came away from his meeting with Dr. Ed Jackson Jr. uncertain whether the project would look to Vermont for any of the tons of stone needed to complete the memorial.
"Did it really matter to them? Were they quaking in their boots because the mayor of Barre was coming to see them? I don't think so," he said of the Wednesday meeting.
Lauzon said the conversation, which lasted just over an hour, was very cordial and there was an exchange of information.
He left Jackson with an invitation to visit Barre and meet with granite industry staff here before making final decisions about some of the big pieces needed to complete the memorial.
I've got my own gripes about outsourcing work that Americans do simply in order to save money, so despite a lot of noise about race (and there's bound to be some), my spidey senses are tingling. Why would we send away for granite and sculptors from another country?
But I'm only beginning to grasp the subtleties involved. Consider Button's own words:
The denial of American Granite Resource and Labor is just as wrong as the representation that no African American Artist could be found to produce a likeness of Dr. King. In our stone business, it is much like a patron in a restaurant. You walk in, order a combination of items from a menu or maybe even ask if something can be prepared that is not on the menu. Then, a qualified cook or chef obediently does your bidding. You pay, leave happy and everybody wins. Few patrons care where the food comes from or how it was produced. As an industry carver, my job is to produce the designs brought to me. If they are ugly and you pay, I'll make them ugly. A chef doesn't have to like to eat what he cooks.
Having never met you, I'll argue I could send you a bucket of clay and you could produce a good likeness of Dr. King. Might take a week, a year or a decade. But you can fix it until it is right. Then you send it to someone like me or my Masters and we reproduce your clay model, same size, larger or smaller in stone. In stone, however, you only have one chance. That is the process. If I get to produce the model, I will also be the sculptor- not just the carver. By their actions, the King Memorial Foundation asserted no artist in America, Black or White, was qualified to participate in this project. Neither was any American stonecarver. Given 300 million people- even if there are only about a dozen of us granite industry sculptors left in the USA- that is unacceptable. It is also untrue.
In Lei's model, the loose fitting suit of Dr. King is not accurate to his persona. That was one of Ed Dwight's first complaints. It is correct iconography in Chinese sculptural protocol, in depicting leaders like Mao. The posture of Lei's model is nearly identical, except for the head, of one of Lei's previous statues of Mao. Dr. King was right handed. Lei has him only holding a object (a pen) in the left hand, which in Chinese sculptural protocol is indicative of a individual in defiance. Perhaps suitable, but covert in nature and inappropriate here. Thus a billion people in China can look upon this image of Dr. King and possibly see him as a peer or product of the Communist regime that murdered 70 million. That's a dangerous precedent.
King as Mao? Not in my capitol.
There's admittedly a great deal to absorb here, but this is the strength of the 'sphere. We have lots of bandwidth to surface stories of great impact and we can get into the details, many of which will never surface in the mainstream media. I'm always proud and happy to get people very close to the action. I also need to retract some of my more caustic rhetoric directed at Gilbert Young based on my misinterpretation of the scope of his protest. I apologize for calling him a loser and await further comment and information before I pass judgment.
There is a great deal of sentiment that will always be associated with the building of monuments. In this instance, perhaps above all, there is some serious consideration that must go into our evaluation of it. There is time to reconcile our differences and get behind something all Americans should be proud of. Let's take that time and see clearly on this.
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