It is seldom that a writer for a prestigious publication spontaneously performs the equivalent of placing a neon “I am a racist moron who should never be taken seriously again!” sign on her head, but that’s what Karen Attiah has done. She’s a columnist for The Washington Post “on issues relating to race, gender and international politics, with a special interest in Africa”—naturally, she minored in Black Studies at Columbia, giving her anti-white racist urges just the boost they needed. One benefit of the disastrous Martin Luther King memorial unveiled this week in Boston is that it has caused lots of pundits, critics and others to reveal things about themselves (hypocrisy, bad taste) that the public needs to know—in Attiah’s case, that she is afflicted by the worst kind of racist hate and paranoia.
Attiah launched into a Twitter rant this week about how the “Embrace” sculpture (above) is a perfect example of how evil whites still distort the legacy of Dr. King as part of the structural racism and vile white supremacy America thrives on…
Boston’s Embrace statue perfectly represents how White America loves to butcher MLK. Cherry-picking quotes about love and non-violence. While ignoring his radicalism, anti-capitalism, his fierce critiques of white moderates. MLK- in his fullness– is still too much for them...And yes, I’ll say it. From another angle, the statue for real looks like one person is performing disembodied oral sex. No matter how much I try, I can’t unsee it. I don’t think MLK would have wanted us to be thinking about cunnilingus on his birthday. Thanks, Boston.…There is nothing radical about the disembodied, de-racialized Embrace statue. It is sending a whitewashed, multi-million dollar message — that MLK and Coretta overcame structural racism and systematic injustice with love– interpersonal, colorblind love….Anyway, since the statue has been revealed, have we been talking about it, or MLK? No. We’ve been talking all weekend about horribly racist/ anti-Black Boston has been– and continues to be. Mission accomplished…? This is what happens when white America tries to grossly distort what MLK really stood for… and ultimately.. what they murdered him for. In making MLK a whitewashed symbol of love, the Embrace statue is both safe AND grotesque. Says little about the man, a lot about America….To have a dismembered statue of a Black man and woman, in a country that killed and destroyed so many Black people, will never sit right with me. MLK Jr. was also murdered by white America. It’s giving -“We are so grateful for Black people’s noble sacrifice” – energy.