Weve have come so far and yet the goal is still far away

[Anlushac11]

It seems Black artists are offended that a Chinese artist was selected to erect a 3 story monument to Dr. Martin Luther King in Washington D.C..

"They keep saying King was for everyone. I keep telling people, 'No, King wasn't for everyone. King was for fairness and justice,'" said Gilbert Young, a black painter from Atlanta who has started a Web site and a petition drive to try to change the project.

"I believe that black artists have the right to interpret ourselves first," Young said. "If nobody steps up to the plate to do that, then certainly pass it along to someone else."

The memorial foundation directing the project seems surprised at the criticism. Ten of the 12 people on the committee that chose the sculptor, Lei Yixin, are black. Lei is working closely on the design with two black sculptors in the U.S., organizers said, and the overall project is being directed by a black-owned architecture firm.

To quote Dr. King:

When we let freedom 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!"

In essence I am offended that they are offended.

[Tas]

I think its a case of jealousy masked by hypocricy.

[Roaming East]

youve got to be kidding me. People are PROTESTING this? My God, i lose a little more faith in my fellow man every day im alive.

[-DarthMaul-]

I will outright say it, and I dont care because im definatly not a racist. I have found black people to be the most hypocritical people I've dealt with throughout my near current life.

I really am not that much surprised.

[Rich19]

Pah, they're simply trying to get the contract themselves. I seriously doubt it has anything to do with being offended, but a lot to do with money. They shouldn't use the race issue for personal gain, but there's not a lot that can be done. I doubt the contract will be taken away from the Chinese artist.

[Crazy Wolf]

This is some bullshit from people who clearly needed to clean the wax out of their ears when they listened to Dr. King. What was that line, something about the quality of your character, and not the color of your skin?

[Jeffro]

This kind of hypocritical nonsense is what creates racism in the first place...

[Benzin]

Well, that is truly outrageous. If we tear it down then there will be even more protest. Was there protest before it was even built?

[Anlushac11]

I dont think it is built yet. It is still under development.

This IMHO is racism pure and simple. Apparently only a black man should be allowed to build a monument to a famous black man.

But then I have had black people tell me that black people cant be racist and that there is no such thing as reverse discrimination.

I do understand black people were persecuted as slaves but my first ancestors were Scots who moved here and settled in Tennessee and Kentucky and married into the Cherokee Indians living there. They never owned slaves. And in fact some of the family houses in Kentucky were part of the underground railroad and I have seen the secret chamber in one house that was under the fireplace hearth.

My dads family did not come to America til around 1900 and were from Hungary and Russia.

[Chemix2]

Were all men blind, we would be offended by the accents of others, were we deaf and blind, it would be the texture of their touch that would offend us, were we in capable of sensing anything, we would be dead.

I only see people as a race when they point themselves out to be. "You see yourself as a black man, I see myself as a man."- Sidney Poitier