Idiophonebox

washingtonpoststyle:

“The quote makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit. … He had no arrogance at all. He had a humility that comes from deep inside. The ‘if’ clause that is left out is salient. Leaving it out changes the meaning completely.”

Maya Angelou, in reference to a paraphrased quotation on the Martin Luther King Jr. monument.

I already posted about this on several online articles, but I think the uprising is ridiculous. If you read the whole sermon it was paraphrased from, it makes even more sense. To me, it boils down to this:

1. It is not inscribed as a direct quote.
2. It speaks to the idea that, although his image itself is iconic, he wanted to emphasize being an icon of peace.
3. It’s short, memorable and conveys an unmistakable message to the millions of people who will see it.

The large scale monument itself is raising up his image as a “drum major” and the inscription serves to counter that. If you want to remain absolutely true to the paraphrased sermon, the monument shouldn’t be an image of Martin Luther King Jr. at all.

I don’t think the group that spent decades raising money and rallying for the monument made the choice flippantly. There were limitations on what they could do. People have already also complained that it’s facing the Jefferson Memorial instead of the Lincoln Memorial and that a Chinese artist sculpted it instead of an African American.

There are more salient objections that could be made about the monument. I’m fine with it.