The usual suspects of mainstream media, who’ve managed to become favored among a large section of the public who think they’re getting hyperbole-free news, have got their panties all in an ass-chafing, scrotum-scraping bunch. A force of nature that’s threatening to barrel down on us at some time after midnight is being considered so furious that our esteemed local government has shut down America’s largest public transportation system in the midst of early afternoon’s calm breezes and demure drizzles; a system closure that has been enacted a good 12 hours before Irene is scheduled to arrive in town, drop her luggage, demand room service, and stay for a night.
Efforts to remain calm and vigilant about Irene aren’t helped by hysterical newscasters incessantly screaming “emergency” and creating Irene-isms on ad nauseam loop. Having finally weaned myself from a lifetime TV addiction, I’m not about to tune in to tune out by watching coverage consisting of some local dingbat in a yellow rain jacket holding on to her hood and masturbating in her “I’m-a-dedicated-reporter-standing-on-the-front-lines-of-a-hurricane” stance while waving her hand at the beachfront behind her and telling John back in the studio , “As you can see, there’s no one here at Coney Island today! Winds are picking up and the boardwalk is a ghost town!” She’ll then inevitably find a lone figure in the starkness of Coney Island’s eerily barren weekend landscape who will either sputter something about getting the last loaf of bread from the market or express an idiotic, frat boy-like jubilance at the thought of witnessing mother nature’s destructive tendencies. “Oooo,” she’ll think happily, when the segment is complete, ”on my way to Emmy land!” And onward she’ll go to aspire to the likes of Katie Couric and other similar establishment boot-lickers.
While all the acronymed media conglomerates orchestrate a dramatic symphony of mass hysteria and deference to authority, I stay stranded on one side of the Hudson River and listen to Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech on a radio station that consistently refuses to aid and abet the Establishment’s aggressive efforts to corral us lemmings into a perpetual state of collective non-thought.
A rock-toss distance away from the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, Dr. King’s likeness sculpted in stone was set to be honored tomorrow on the National Maul, I mean Mall. Irate Irene’s anticipated visit to our nation’s capital has squashed those plans, with a future date for the ceremony being pushed to September or October, which strikes me as quite a bit of possible lag time for a celebration that ostensibly has already had its logistics calculated. Nonetheless, the predicted fury of Irene has got nothing on the fierce storm of unease and controversy over the creation of Dr. King in stone – namely, who made it, and who bought it.
Any object that is marked by “Made in China” immediately summons some level of disgust and vitriol, and tends to stoke the low-lying but fiery embers of anti-Asian sentiment with a single stroke. The tenets of cheap production that the Chinese government forces on its unprivileged citizens is not separated from the very citizens who are coerced by institutional poverty to lead lives consumed by sweatshop environments rife with harassment and extortion. Because Americans as a whole are not encouraged to think critically and dissect the widespread phenomenon of governments that truly do not represent the interests of their constituencies, Asian Americans must brace themselves for the usual rhetoric that comes flying out of media’s mouths and leads right down the path to “foreign, anti-American job-stealer” whenever the Chinese government ruthlessly decides that using lethal but cost-cutting materials in American exports is a good idea.
Dr. King’s likeness in stone was made in China, by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin, with Chinese materials. Upon my initial awareness of this unlikely piece of news, I did indeed brace myself; but so far, grasping the safety bar for dear life in anticipation of a tumultuous roller coaster ride through expansive rancor has been only marginally necessary. So far. Despite my trepidation at running the risk of sounding like my America-is-number-one-fuck-everybody-else adversaries, I am an American who deeply respects true leadership in any civil rights struggle, so I’m disturbed and flummoxed by the decision to outsource the work to depict one of America’s greatest leaders; particularly during a time of near-Depression era levels of unemployment, a voracious appetite for union-busting, and national debt as pervasive as the Bible’s swarming locusts.
The MLK National Memorial Foundation that is responsible for conceiving and executing this endeavor is represented through executive architect Edward Johnson Jr., and funded by corporations which all exercise policies that insult and violate Dr. King’s inestimable sense of humanity.
Who’s paying for the suspension of Dr. King in stone? Here’s a partial roll call, courtesy of Dr. Jared Ball at the invaluable analytical resource, Black Agenda Report:
Corporations: Individuals:
JP Morgan Andrew Young of John Edwards’ 2008 campaign
Exxon Russell Simmons, killer of radical underground poetry
Target Tommy Hilfiger, producer of offensively boring yuppie wear
Walmart J.C. Watts, former Bush appointee and GOP congressman
Direct TV Earl Graves, corporate mogul and former Bush appointee
Boeing Daniel Snyder, Owner, Washington Redskins
Viacom David Stern, NBA Commissioner
Disney
Coca-cola
General Motors
Edward Johnson’s apparent reasoning for explicitly shunning the employment of an American sculptor to create this monument is that there are no American sculptors capable of handling stones of such immense magnitude. Since America is unique in that we are a nation of immigrants and highly diverse beings who are especially capable of putting forth innovative artistry because of our varied backgrounds, this is a terribly flimsy response by which Johnson should be embarrassed. How far and wide did they search? African American sculptor Ed Dwight was told that the choice of a Chinese sculptor was a matter of money. The MLK Foundation was hoping to coax the Chinese government into donating $25 million toward their $120 million fundraising goal. A small price for promoting Chinese national pride, perhaps.
While the MLK Foundation was busy courting the Chinese to fill its coffers, it also found time to entertain a related skirmish that broke out in September last year over who will help depict a leader who was assassinated while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis.
Where corporations loom, union struggles reign.
Dr. King contemplates the lunacy of the 21st century.
After The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers (BAC) protested the MLK Foundation’s plans for employing foreign stonemasons, MLK Foundation president, Harry Johnson, Jr., seemingly conceded to BAC union power and issued a promise. In writing, Johnson declared that BAC workers would be employed “to complete the assembly and installation of the Mountain of Despair and Stone of Hope sculpture pieces.” For all of this feel-good posturing by the MLK Foundation, the BAC, a union that has participated in erecting every major monument in Washington DC since the civil war, reaped no benefits. About a dozen Chinese stonemasons accompanied Lei for the Dr. King sculpture’s final steps of assembly, and the BAC was left in the dust of the Foundation’s hollow promises. The president of BAC’s Washington DC area local, Scott Garvin, tried in vain to inquire with Foundation president Harry Johnson. Johnson never bothered to return his calls. Fueled by “national pride” and a desire to bring “glory to the Chinese people,” the Chinese stonemasons were flown to the US without payment and trusted that they’d be paid for their work upon returning home. Hopefully, their government won’t pull a Harry Johnson on them.
Irene’s due to be here in just a couple of hours. It’s predicted she’s going to be something of a hell-raiser – crashing through city streets, hurling garbage cans at everything in her way, ripping out power lines, and flooding lower Manhattan with the juice of her rage. In this union-busting, perpetually xenophobic climate geared toward obliterating the working class, the poor, and people of color with brazen divide-and-conquer tactics, we’d be wise to learn from Irene’s shameless disposition while she’s here.
Just as Dr. King became the target of venomous insult and an outcast who was accused of damaging his own movement by becoming an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, we must not be afraid of standing up for human rights in the face of the oppressive elite. This is something that many of us expected our charismatic, intelligently articulate president to do for us as we glowingly embraced the idea of his being a continuance of Dr. King’s dream. Writes Ron Kipling Williams, “No president – black or not – should ever be juxtaposed to Dr. King if he himself does not oppose war, and does not call for the radical redistribution of the wealth, and does not fight vigorously for poor people.” In this regard, our president has, in fact, been an utter failure, and does not deserve the association with Dr. King. The proliferation of true humanity is up to us; as Dr. King taught, it has always been.
Observe Irene, and respect the legacy of Dr. King far beyond a visit to the new stone memorial ever could. Be a hell-raiser and enact the dream.
felicific aberrance 