MLK- “Smile,” Though you’re Heart is breaking!

It’s time to stand up and fight… for a frown. Remember a while back when folks were in a tizzy because an Asian (Chinese to be exact) sculptor had been commissioned for the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington D.C.?? By most people’s standards Mr. Lei Yixin has done an excellent job of capturing the image and spirit of Dr. Kin in his artwork. Perhaps he’s done too good of a job.
The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts is asking the artist to “soften” the face of Dr. King, Make him smile…

I personally have a major problem with that. Although documentaries and interviews with his family and friends depict Dr. King as a kind, loving, joking father, spiritual leader and friend, he was much more than that. Dr. King was strong, radical, demanding of his rights as a black person for justice and what was right. The Government treated him like a terrorist, tapped his phones and questioned his national loyalty. So why should he be smiling on Washington? One person was quoted as saying that he looked too “confrontational”. Shouldn’t the man who led marches in some of the most hate-filled, racist, hostile towns of the segregated south be at least a little confrontational!!?? These people want Dr. King to be remembered as the safe negro; The happy “darky” smiling through life’s hardships of racial strife and biases. Taking away the focused, hardworking countenance of the Civil Rights leader and replacing it with a complacent smile is the equivalent of replacing the sculpture with a Sambo cookie jar. It’s certainly just as inaccurate and disrespectful.

The foolishness of this claim would be laughable if it didn’t underlie some of the most obviously sub-conscious racist thought. The notion that the black face, when it’s not laughing or smiling or cracking wise, when it’s not joking about it’s own cultural and racial disparities, the black face when it’s not pleased with everything that surrounds it is scary. The Black face when it is not smiling is a visible threat to the safety and peace of America. Sounds silly huh? But it was that same “fear” of black male uprising that allowed the very racism Dr. King fought against to thrive for so long in this nation. It was the same mentality that aided in depicting blacks as happy captives and idiots in movies and TV for years (Zipity Doo Dah anyone??). The happy, smiling docile Negro is an American favorite, but here’s the truth… the Negro ain’t always happy.
Dr. King just happened to be a Negro so unhappy with the treatment, the lies of Justice for all, and the Jim Crow south that he stood up and did something about it. And you think he was smiling??

Check out this Article at “The Root”
They have some great links in their piece about this issue.