MLK Jr Memorial Has Massive Boner
They chiseled an out-of-context paraphrase of his words into granite, to make it appear as though he described himself as a “drum major,” which he did not. Then again, given his well-documented reputation for academic mischief, perhaps a plagiarized quote would have been a better tribute.
Rachel Manteuffel via The Washington Post:
The memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. has been a little controversial — but not for the right reason. Someone, somewhere along the line, made a decision that makes King look like something he was not: an arrogant jerk.
“I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”
That’s what it says on the right side of King’s enormous monument. At first it struck me as odd that this man, whose many other quotes on the same monument are beautifully worded and biblically informed, would refer to himself as a drum major. To me, silly hats and King just did not compute.
Then I saw the larger problem. This quote is awfully self-aggrandizing for a man who so often symbolized the strength in humility. It’s akin to memorializing Mahatma Gandhi with the quote, “Don’t you know who I am?” Even if the Mahatma said that once, it’s not as though that is what we remember him for.
When I looked up the King quote, I found that the sin was actually worse than simply shoe-horning in an uncharacteristically immodest statement. The quote carved into the memorial on the Mall is not what Martin Luther King Jr. said. This is the equivalent of a Hollywood publicist pulling four words out of context from a newspaper review to make a bad film seem good. Except in this case, it’s the reverse: It takes the good out of context and makes it bad.
King’s full quote:
“Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”
This comes at the end of a long and powerful sermon. The speech, called “The Drum Major Instinct,” is about the desire in the human spirit to be great without doing any great, difficult things. To be at the front of the pack, drawing all the attention. This is folly, King says. And then, right at the start of the words at issue, he says, “if.” If you want to make me a drum major, then say I was a drum major for justice.
An “if” clause is an extraordinarily bad thing to leave out of a quote. If I had to be a type of cheese, being Swiss is best.
What makes this tragic is that King had the ability to say precisely what he meant, with enormous impact. In the speech, he is creating a bit of a straw man: If you see him as an attention-craver, a puffed-up drum major — if you call him out on this conceit, a weakness most people are prone to — then at least he would hope that you saw him doing it for the most noble causes.
Big difference, no?
As it happens, according to the memorial’s Web site, the Council of Historians that chose the quotes selected a more representative chunk of the whole quote, with the “say that’s” intact. This version would have made it clear that King was not declaring himself a drum major. But at some point in the process, some unknown editor — in life, as in art, the villain is so often an editor — made a dreadful cut.
I say, let’s undo the mistake. Let’s get the chisels back out.
Let’s remember the words he chose and not let this be one more way we’ve failed King.
Rachel Manteuffel works in The Post’s Editorial Department.
Posted by WM on Friday, August 26, 2011, at 7:36 pm | 
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Government efficiency at it’s finest.
won’t matter..no one who reads it will know the difference
They must have pulled this quote off of the Oval Office rug.
Typical liberals….they ALWAYS rewrite history.
http://www.foxnews.com/images/592088/0_21_450_beck_flotus.jpg
New Oval Office Rug Gets Quote Wrong
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/09/05/new-oval-office-rug-gets-quote-wrong/
Sep 5, 2010
When President Barack Obama ponders big policy decisions, he might find inspiration from some of his favorite quotations inscribed on a new rug in the Oval Office.
The rug’s perimeter is lined with sayings from Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Teddy Roosevelt. It also has a quote that Obama has described as his favorite from Martin Luther King, Jr.
Only it turns out – after the rug has already be sewn and laid down – that it’s been incorrectly attributed to King.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” is a phrase the civil rights leader used regularly. Obama even referred to it in his election victory speech in Chicago on Nov. 5, 2008.
But it turns out that whenever King used the phrase, he was actually echoing another speaker a century before him, whom he admired: the Massachusetts minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker, who in 1853 said, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”
(continued)
More
http://trevorloudon.com/2011/08/%E2%80%9Cmartin-luther-mao%E2%80%9D-dedication-postponed/
MLK exalted the constitution, longed for racial harmony, praised the Lord EVERYTHING which Obama stands against.
“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the CONSTITUTION and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so 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 have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an OASIS OF FREEDOM AND JUSTICE.
I have a dream that my four little 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.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of GOD’S CHILDREN, BLACK MEN AND WHITE MEN, JEWS AND GENTILES, PROTESTANTS AND CATHOLICS, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
The money quote is:
“I have a dream that my four little 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.”
Somthing was lost in the Chinese interpretation.
Replace it!
If we’re going to make a tribute to freedom, we should do it right.
.
Somthing was lost in the Chinese interpretation”
sort of like when you get directions to assemble some contraption
“Nut #4 circled to bolt#6 tighten politely with nice wrench on capture top.”
MLK was a joke and a marxist. He plagiarized the Bible, in Jer 23, of course, the funniest part about it is the whole chapter is on FALSE PROPHET (which is what MLK was). Jeremiah 23:25:
25I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
26How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart;
They should just demolish this hideous piece of crap and start over with an American sculptor.
“doppelganglander says:
August 26, 2011 at 8:16 pm
They should just demolish this hideous piece of crap and start over with an American sculptor.”
E.X.A.C.T.L.Y. Most of the black population does not realize that this is from china. Good gawd. What a freakin joke! They had an American sculptor who put in his bid, BUTTTTTTTT they decided to go with the chinese because it was so much cheaper. Ya get what ya pay for…..
I loved MLK and remember him through the eyes of a child.
This thing is horrendous and would more appealing if it had been carved and set from a real mountain in the United States if America.
it looks like a gimmick
“They should just demolish this hideous piece of crap and start over with an American sculptor.”
———-
It’s even carved out of Chinese stone.
.
This monstrosity is brought to you by the People’s Republic of China, which is neither the “People’s” nor a “republic”……..
It’s hideous to misquote this great peace maker – God sees all – take note.
God bless America, our troops, Israel and fellow humans.
@gastorgrab
texture and color looks like sandstone or something similar. Wont last very long at all really if that is the case.
Fox did a segment on an older gent, a black sculptor, who was originally selected to make the King statue. He sounds quite bitter. “They’ve made this to look like Dr. King was an arrogant man. He was a very humble man. He would hate being depicted this way.”
BTW — Did you know the King family managed to shake down the feds for $800K for the rights to put up this “tribute.”
http://bit.ly/n0agBo
They appear to be on par with the First Grifters.
One wonders how the CHICOMS resisted placing a Mao hat on Dr. King’s head, but of course with this monstrous boulder there is ample stone yet to carve one.
I first learned to really appreciate monuments with the Viet Nam Memorial as a shining black wall reflecting the viewers face amongst the names of the fallen, but completely out of view and invisible from the other side.
The Reverend Dr. King deserves a much better monument than this colossus, one that would reflect the humility of a truly great man.
This monstrosity looks more like Mao than MLK.
I can’t believe this. Is this some stupid joke or is it a matter of lack of intelligence.
but. wait. does it really matter. The statue is the most amateurish pathetic attempt at art. shameful. cheap looking.
This is deliberate malicious mischief! The Chinese are not dumb by any means. This is broken in the same manner as the defective products that we often buy that are made in China. I had a hunch they’d give him and orential appearance and they did that too. The statue made in China is a cruel joke.
Rachel, Powerful and brilliant argument! I love the man, hate the sculpture.
Geez, it’s ugly! Start over, people.
Just start over and put Kid Zero sitting on his lap.
Why does every MLK blvd, road, street, ave…. reside in the shittist part of every town.
Who fking cares about this thing anyway? It’s a waste of money and Obummer will use it as a prop so he can get all his ‘voters’ back on the plantation in time for the election.
This whole monument issue is a sorry sham from financing to sculpting.
The statue is a perfect example of the “Socialist Realism” form. For other examples see any statue of Mao or Lenin.
Also and this is quite funny, the eye are almond shaped. King was actually Chinese. Who knew?
There also have been complaints that it is not tall enough(at 29 ft.)compared to the other monuments. Lincoln statue(sitting) is around 19 ft. high, of course if he stood up…..
This monument looks like Mao recreates Cleopatra’s triumphant entry into Rome.
This thing is a travesty.
I’m thinking there is so much unused stone because there are plans to add others from the “civil rights” movement at some point. 1 panel each for
Malcom X, (who never did a thing) Rosa Parks & Rev. Jesse Jackson perhaps ?
Mr. King was such an inspiration because of his lack of conceit in advocating justice, not for himself alone but, for our fellow humans and citizens. The vast majority of our fellow humans and citizens today can not even grasp the concept that “…It is more blessed to give than to receive”(Acts20:35). Mr. King understood and gave his last full measure of devotion. May all those involved in this travesty be laid low so they may come to know the God of justice, peace, righteousness, and Mr. King.
Back in January, Eric Holder was referring to Dr. King as “our greatest drum major for justice”. I thought it odd then, too.
http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/2011/01/our-nations-greatest-drum-major-for.html
Is this the tragic but victorious Christian MINISTER whose eloquence and courage inspired America to embrace his and our own best dream of freedom and equality? No, this is not that 20th century hero of Integration who might be depicted gesturing heavenward or simply holding out a hand of friendship, as one man to another. Instead, arms folded so he can’t even be forced to touch you, this is not a democratic man of God anymore but an aloof and unappeaseable POLITICIAN who stands there now for endless grievance-mongering, perpetual affront, for the shakedown values and racial divisiveness, all of which are implicit in Obama Era Multiculturalism.
For a minute there I thought it was either Mao or Stalin!!! Very ponderous and stylized typical of the monolithic sculpture of their their related regimes.
Such much negative energy and thought posted here — it just proves how scared the white men are the “others” and have to compete with them.
The comments about how the carver is not even “black” misses the point of MLK’s dream – race should not be an issue. We are all human.
His look is one of determination — and he is looking at all the bigots posting here.