The Cut with that Brother! Does Renown Artists Gilbert Young Have Valid Points Regarding the MLK Memorial and Monument? VideoBuzz

I appreciate you interviewing  Gilbert. He is a colleague. I agree with his opinions regarding The MLK monument. I contacted the MLK committee several times five years ago and was told at that time the sculptor was already chosen and the selection was closed. I thought Ed Dwight  had the commission, but talked to him later & learned otherwise. Alpha Phi Alpha did a yeoman’s job of spearheading the fundraising but Laid an Egg of not allowing any one of our gifted African American Sculptors. As an American Artist, as an American Sculptor I would have loved to sculpt the MLK monument.
Would an Asian country allow an American or African American Sculptor do a monument of one of their Heroes and place it in one of their most public places. I think not. We as African Americans  have another loss, in Art as well as the loss of the Black Hair Industry.
In all of our victories we still can’t see the forest for the trees.

http://www.georgenock.com

George Nock

I would love to sit down with you all in a public forum and tell you the
tale of this monument.  All you really know is what has been presented in
the media, but over the past 7 years  there has been a federal
investigation, we’ve share a bottle of wine with Isaac Farris and heard the
woes of  the civil rights icons, we’ve been interviewed and threatened,
and we’ve been schooled on the fears inherent in our people. Fears of 
bucking a system that “might” offer them a paycheck one day. There
are many points to make. A few of them are these:

1) The federal investigation we called for resulted in a report that took us
two years to receive after numerous requests through the Freedom of Information
Act.  Much of the report was redacted (blacked out) to protect those who
had perpetrated this obscenity of a monument.  We discovered that Yixin
was a single source award.  There was no competition or
selection process involved in choosing him as Artist of Record though multiple
media reports stated that a panel of mostly African Americans had selected him
as the best of the best presented.  2) We discovered that though $10
million in federal funds was allocated to the monument, the project organizers
would never be able to claim it, because most of the project was not subject to
an open bid process, thus violating the Buy America Act. That’s why y’all kept
getting the “we need more $$” emails. Most of the project was doled
out to political allies and friends, and millions were spent on
consultants.  Y’all know their names.

3) We discovered that Ed Dwight, the first African American astronaut was
the original artist of record, but since he works in bronze a sub-contractor
was sought to create the monument from Dwight’s maquette; an artist who works
in stone.  The sub-contractor became Yixin, who was supposed to remain
anonymous.  When Dwight critiqued Yixin’s rendition with a 13 page
report,  siting many of the complaints now being published, Dwight was
kicked to the curb and Yixin was named artist of record. This is where the
politics of the monument began and where the decision was made to use Chinese
granite, the Communist/atheist artist, and stone quarried from the ground using
workers who made $2 per day.

All of this made me crazy, but when Isaac Farris confirmed that the family
was appalled to learn slave labor was used to pull granite that would be carved
into his uncles face, I felt a little hope.  But he went further.  He
said too much money was on the table, and the train was going too fast now to
stop.  In other words, there was no new “Dr. King” ready to
stand up and say the word NO.

My problem with this whole situation does not lie with those of you who were
(are) afraid to stand up and say “If not this monument, WHEN.” 
My problem lies in the fact that we as a people are the only people on this planet
who do not consider it imperative to be allowed to present our history as we
see it.  We do not demand to be able to tell our own story, we do not
believe our childrens children will be affected by our lack of self
love.  We do not understand that every other culture on this planet takes
pride in who they are and where they have been and how their history has
impacted EVERY other culture on this planet.  We are a magnificent people.
And we deserved the right to present this monument to the world.  That
four acres on the National Mall was meant to be a place where we staked our
claim as African Americans.  Instead there is as monstrous rendition of
Dr. King  representing the best of the People’s Republic of China, a
country with one of the worst human rights and civil rights records on the
planet.  Is this a fitting monument to our leader?  You tell me.
 

LOL team tigerwoods