The Gibson Report ...

Consequences of Not Treating Mental Illness

2012-01-15T01:20:00.000-08:00

A KEY QUESTION FOR 2012: Is it OK NOT TO Treat the Mentally Ill?

It is well in 2012... to keep this question in mind, whenever you read about a person being suspected of being mentally ill when arrested for a violent crime. Why? Because, contrary to myths - most mentally ill people are not violent; most do not commit crimes. The ones making the news are the ones not taking or receiving medication and/or treatment.

Since research shows that treatment works, the next logical question becomes - Why doesn't society intervene with medical treatment in order to reduce the incidents of violence/crimes when committed by "untreated" mentally challenged individuals? More specifically - Why do nearly half of the people diagnosed with a mental illness NOT get the treatment or medicine they need?

Just as important... Where is the ourtrage? How is it that our legislators and policymakers continue to make mental health issues a low priority? It is more than ironic that the typical response to violent crimes by the mentally ill is a call for GUN CONTROL rather than MENTAL HEALTH REFORM.

In fact, a recent editorial (11/27/2011) in a major newspaper (Baltimore Sun), shows just how much education remains to be done to destigmatize mental illness. First, following rare inmate on inmate deaths at a state mental hospital, Baltimore Sun editors endorsed a new CEO calling him “the right man to lead the institution on the long road to emotional recovery.” But it was stunning to learn from the editors that: “most of the extremely mentally ill patients at Clifton T. Perkins state mental hospital” had “never received treatment for their illnesses before they came to Perkins.” Excuse me? Did I miss something here? Is that true? Can the Baltimore Sun editors be really sure that patients found “not criminally responsible” for their crimes are at the correctional mental hospital because THEY DID NOT RECEIVE TREATMENT FOR A MENTAL ILLNESS before being arrested? Wow!!! How does that make you feel? Are we really being well-protected in our society?

Second, this lack of protection certainly doesn’t seem to bother some of the Sun editorial writers… even though they also pointed out that - most of the 239 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorders, and severe mood disturbances, as major depression and bipolar disorders, DID NOT receive psychiatric treatment before they arrived there. Now that is one scary thought? Is it just me or do you find it also repugnant that the media and policy makers are not alarmed? Do they really just accept that some mentally ill people have to commit crimes to get treatment their broken brains so urgently need?

As a certified teacher for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in Maryland, I have taught hundreds of caregivers for the mentally ill that treatment works. They already know that stigma hurts!

NAMI’s free 12-week education program - Family2Family (F2F) - is taught throughout Maryland and the country. It is pivotal for helping parents, spouses, and other caregivers understand brain disorders (mental illness), prescribed medicines, and psychiatric rehabilitation services. We also learn how difficult it is to get coordinated services in Maryland – a state that withholds treatment unless a person is a danger to “self or others.” But the newspaper did not explore why that is the case. In other words, by not focusing on how so many untreated mentally ill adults end up at a Perkins, the Baltimore Sun might well be reinforcing the myth that the mentally ill are dangerous.

Headlines and research, however, show otherwise: it is dangerous for a society to have untreated mentally ill people. Mental health budgets continue to get cut without a whimper. And while ideally it would be well if mentally challenged people demanded better, how can they when they are already suffering from fatigue, just trying to survive without housing, jobs, and/or treatment.

Those who have graduated from Family2Family (F2F) classes continue to be appalled that we we live with or care for ”untreated” mentally ill relatives. It is not encouraging when we discover that Maryland is one of the seven worse places - Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Tennessee - for getting coordinated mental health care without a crime being committed. In the name of individual rights, these states allow the mentally ill people to refuse treatment even when they are in the midst of an episode. But that in itself is a strange decision since science already shows that the brain of a mentally ill person can’t be trusted early on in the disease. Denying the illness is a part of the disease itself. It is a neurologically based brain disease called – anosognosia.

According to the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC) in Arlington, VA... anosognosia – is believed to be the single largest reason why individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder do not take their medications. It is caused by damage to specific parts of the brain, especially the right hemisphere, and affects approximately 50 percent of individuals with schizophrenia and 40 percent of individuals with bipolar disorder. TAC says, when taking medications, awareness of brain illness tends to improves in many patients. In addition, Oliver Sacks who wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, notes that it is difficult, for even the most sensitive observer… to picture the inner state of the mentally ill because the experience itself ”is almost unimaginably remote from anything” most of us know.

For Maryland and the other six states lacking court-ordered assisted or outpatient treatment means - the only way seriously mentally ill citizens can get treatment as their condition deteriorates… is to commit a crime! Remember the guy who traveled across country to fire shots at the White House late last year? Was that a mental health call for help?

It is thus hard to ignore that family caregivers lack important and much needed safety nets for helping the mentally challenged. Caregivers can’t force them to take medicine or go to outpatient treatment centers, even when these actions would make them less likely to be violent. Except for seven states, a history of not taking medicine is a condition itself for getting them to take prescribed medicine. By calling such conditions "forced treatment" or "involuntary treatment," proponents attempt to alarm the public in rhetoric about "individual rights." Rights which themselves assume that a person is of a sound mind. Those who oppose giving the mentally ill medicine or treatment against their will, therefore, cling to the narrow interpretation that requires a mentally ill person to be a danger to self or others before getting treatment. And by assumption, that usually means committing a crime.

Until Maryland and the few other states follow the example of the many... family members of the mentally ill face their untreated relatives being homeless, placed in jails, wandering the streets, and frequently released from Emergency Rooms and psychiatric facilities before they are stabilized BECAUSE they haven't hurting themselves or others, yet! So, broadening the law of “danger to self or others” is cost effective. Most states get that and have expanded laws now to include other special conditions. The result is that care is coordinated and mentally ill persons often receive court-ordered care BEFORE crimes are committed.
  Those who argue that individuals should not be deprived of their rights, under any circumstances, have probably not been held hostage by a loved one with a mental illness. While it makes sense, ideally, to have mentally ill patients participate in their treatment, timing is important. Research shows that the earlier a mental illness is treated, the greater the chance for recovery. Is it really a good time to give an individual in the middle of a rage-like episode, the right to make decisions about treatment?
  Without a court order to initiate treatment, caregivers are left with mentally ill relatives who insist there is nothing wrong, even though they are unable to hold jobs.   So while treatment for the mentally ill remains a philosophical and political issue, what can’t wait is that the one in five suffering from a mental illness need help NOW!
  It should not be forgotten that patients at correctional mental institutions are often there because they didn’t, couldn’t or wouldn't  get mental health treatment BEFORE committing a crime.
So an equally pressing question for 2012 is: Is it really humane or in the COMMON GOOD for so many of our citizens with compromised minds to be denied the very interventions that would prevent them from being homeless, jobless, violent, in detention centers, prisons or state mental hospitals? If you could hear some of the hundreds of stories that we hear in F2F classes around the country, you would clearly know that the answer is a resounding “NO!”
But coordinated mental illness care is not going to happen without reform of a law based on the out-dated interpretation that a person must be “danger to self and others” before courts can order treatment. Until that happens we're still likely to hear more about "gun control laws" than updating mental health laws.

“The National Institute of Mental Illness (NIMH) in 2010 estimated that 7.7 million Americans suffer from schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder – approximately 3.3% of the US population when combined. Of these, approximately 40% of the individuals with schizophrenia and 51% of those with bipolar are untreated in any given year.” (Source: Treatment Advocacy Center)

What's Wrong With This Picture?

2011-08-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

It's all in the hands!

Does it matter whether Dr. King holds a PEN, as above, or a SCROLL, as below?

Does it matter that the original photograph by Bob Fitch was reversed when the 30-foot statue was sculpted in China?

Does it matter that the Executive Architect for the MLK National Memorial finally admitted in The Washington Post (05/19/2008) that he and his staff had made a mistake and reversed the original picture?

A noted photo, right, of Martin Luther King Jr. by Bob Fitch is the inspiration for a statue of King to be featured in a memorial on Washington's Tidal Basin. (Photos By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)

Does it matter that this blogger and journalist repeatedly tried to get the MLK Foundation and the U. S. Commission on Fine Arts and others to correct the situation?

King Statue adjustments

Friday, May 9, 2008 10:57 AM

From:

"dr. gibson"

To:

tluebke@cfa.gov

Cc:

staff@cfa.gov

Friday, May 9, 2008 10:57 AM

This email is for Secretary Thomas Luebke.

Dear Secretary Luebke:

CONGRATULATIONS on the oversight you are providing for
the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the Tidal
Basis. It is too important a project to let it go
forward in granite when there are still viable
questions about its authenticity and presentation.

Last year I sent a letter to you and referred you to
my Blog (www.thegibsonreport.blogspot.com) that raised
serious questions about the project. Because the
questions were not addressed in your April 25, 2008
letter to the King Foundation, I am again asking you
to read what my investigation has revealed
(www.thegibsonreport.blogspot.com).

The commission should be aware that in addition to the King statue
being "confrontational" it is not accurate (depicts
Dr. King holding a pen in the wrong hand), the same
model (showing Dr. King holding pen in his right hand)
was adamantly rejected by Rocky Mount, NC citizens.

*********************************************

King Statue Errors

Monday, May 19, 2008 1:55 PM

From: "dr. gibson"

To: "The Washington Post"

Cc: ggibson@jhsph.edu

Message contains attachments

1 File (12KB)

· kingright.jpg

Re: "Architect Requests More Changes to King Statue,"

May 19, 2008. I'm confused by Michael Ruane's
article. If, as he points out, the pen in Dr. King's
hand is gone and the executive arthitect Ed Jackson
Jr. admits that the pen was in the wrong hand, then
which hand will hold the scroll? If it's in the left
hand won't that also given the mistaken impression
that Dr. King is "left-handed." You quote Ed Jackson
Jr as saying Dr. King is indeed right-handed and that
a mistake was made because the 1966 Bob Fitch picture
that inspired the clay model was flipped. It is thus
puzzling that the writer or anyone at the newspaper
failed to show the correct photo. By heading up the
article with two incorrect pictures,the "Post" missed
a chance to set the record straight. Since the
sculptor's 28-foot clay model and the picture he
worked from are both "reversed" I'm surprised the
writer did not catch the error. A quick check of my
blog (thegibsonreport.blogspot.com) reveals that the
Foundation could have saved a great deal of money
because I pointed out the "historical inaccuracy" of
the sculptor's model as far back as August 2007. I
also sent word to the Foundation about the situation.
In what is an otherwise informative article, it's too
bad no one bothered to examine Stanford
University historian Clayborne Carson's book on the
life of Dr. King. His cover using the Fitch photo
shows that Ghandi is always to be over the right shoulder
of Dr. King. Let's hope the Foundation gets it right
before Dr. King is cast in stone.

So the key question is:

Are we now stuck with an historically inaccurate statue after a nearly two-decade struggle to have a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial on the National Mall?

Should the MLK sculptor go back to China, make the necessary corrections, and ship the corrected parts back to be once again re-assembled in the USA?

At least in Rocky Mount, NC in 2001, Illinois sculptor Erik Blome got the pose of Dr. King correct... using the same photograph.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Rocky Mount, NC

Because of unhappiness with the way Dr. King was portrayed - many said it didn't look enough like him - the statue was removed for nearly five years before being redone by another artist, and then returned to its spot in 2009.

Shouldn't we ask for ACCURACY on the National Mall?

Portraying Dr. King's hands incorrectly is not the only problem with the long-awaited statue.

Maya Angelou says King memorial inscription makes him look ‘arrogant’

By Gene Weingarten and Michael E. Ruane, Published: August 30

Reporters for the August 30, 2011 Washington Post article were told that the inscription is incorrect because of a design change during the statue's creation. They explained that Dr. King's original quote was paraphrased because of space and quoted Dr. Maya Angelou, one of the memorial's consultants, as saying the inscription "ought to be change."

Instead of the inscription saying... "If you want to call me a drum major, say I was a drum major for justice," the original quote was paraphrased by leaving out the words... "if you want to call me a drum major." Dr. King did not say he was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness. Hats off to Dr. Angelou for insisting that the phrase be corrected.

So not only is Dr. King using the wrong hand for the scroll, he's depicted as being "arrogant," and as Dr. Angelou says, "an egotist." The hurricane that stopped the dedication on August 28, 2011 may have been a blessing in one way; now there's time to correct what needs to be done to render the statue accurate.

But that's not likely to happen without pressure, even though these problems are recognized. According to The Washington Post, the Chief Architect for the MLK Memorial (Ed Jackson Jr.) admitted the error by saying that "the quote was originally planned for the statue’s south face, the one viewers first see as they approach the statue." In fact, Dr. Jackson told the reporters that the "planners changed their minds and decided to move the drum major inscription to the north face," because they wanted the phrase - Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope - to be seen, first, when visitors entered the memorial.

And, to make matters worse, Dr. Jackson says that "when they informed the statue’s sculptor, Lei Yixin, he told them that he had already prepared the north face for the shorter “despair” inscription and that the whole “drum major” quote would not fit.

Excuse me? Who's in charge here? Who, indeed, are the "planners?" It was bad enough to OUTSOURCE 150-tons of granite work to China and to allow mason workers from that country to work without pay in this country to assemble the memorial. It was bad enough not to hold a national and international competition to select a sculptor for such an important project; such was held for the overall memorial design. It not only attracted more than 1,000 submissions but the winning one by the Roma Design Team didn't even include a statue of Dr. King.

ROMA Principals: Bonnie Fisher, FASLA Boris Dramov, FAIA, FAICP Thomas Sprinkle, AIA

And, it was bad enough when an initial group of consultants made up of African American artists and sculptors, revealed to MLK Foundation members, before resigning, that the recently-selected sculptor, working from photographs, couldn't produce enough of a likeness of Dr. King.

But to not insist on accuracy in unpardonable and undermines the integrity of a much endorsed and embraced honor for the first and only African American and first non-president on the National Mall. Hear, hear... who's in charge!

(To see the complete story above, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/maya-angelou-says-king-memorial-inscription-makes-him-look-arrogant/2011/08/30/gIQAlYChqJ_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage )

This blogger who is not only a "founding sponsor" of the MLK Memorial but a participant in the 1963 March on Washington... joins millions of others in wanting a national honor for Dr. King on the National Mall.

BUT there is still much work to be done. When the Executive Architect for the MLK Memorial (Ed Jackson, Jr.) says that that U. S. Commission on Fine Arts didn't have a problem with the paraphrasing when told about it... in the same breath that he says, furthermore, Dr. Angelou didn't show up for meetings about the inscriptions... we've got some serious problems involving this project.

The CFA is the same body that refused to have the MLK Foundation folks correct the situation in 2008 when I made them aware that the proposed statue showed Dr. King as being left-handed, when he was right-handed. To allow the sculptor to merely replace a pen with a scroll, while maintaining the larger error, is at a minimum, questionable decision-making behavior for a federal agency.

Now is the time to call for a delay in dedicating the MLK Memorial on the mall until these serious corrections are made. As Dr. King says on the foundations's MLK National Memorial website:

Bad for whom, Governor?

2010-12-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

Depending on where you stand or sit, the Civil Rights era was how bad, on a scale of 1-10? Well, the governor of Mississippi - Haley Barbour - told the Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson, this week that he couldn't "remember it as being that bad." Guess not, if you're a white male and raised with a sense of superiority.

In fact, Barbour says when he went to hear Dr. Martin Luther King in 1962, he and his friends spent more time watching girls because they really couldn't hear what Dr. King was saying. Wonder why he even bothered to go? The governor certainly didn't explain what prompted so many "black and white" people to show up to hear Dr. King.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour

Interestingly, Governor Barbour's comments echo what several surveys out of the University of Michigan reveal - White people tend to have a different perception than Black people about racial progress. Given the governor's memory of what it was like growing up during a pivotal period in Mississippi, it's probably just as likely that his top down view regarding racial inequality... is unlikely to change should he become the GOP candidate for President in 2012.

White House, Dark Lies...

2010-08-19T22:21:00.000-07:00

With all due respect, the White House and the Obama Administration need a Sociologist lurking around and clarifying many of the stories being spewed by those who still can't accept that someone of color is being called - Mr. President. More and more, everyday, dark lies are being embedded in fictional narratives presented as fact. You see, sociologists could help because we, are passionately obligated to study relationships. We focus on relationships in groups, organizations, and institutions. It would help the Administration, right now, if there were someone on staff directing a systematic analysis of the relationship between truth and haters or Conservatives or myth makers. Why? Because the first question a sociologist would ask is: Who benefits from a false narrative.

By having a sociologist in the West Wing, for instance, a narrative analysis of the claims of those opposing a Muslim mosque in Manhattan near Ground Zero, would have revealed a stunning revelation: Muslims already pray near Ground Zero, and, at the Pentagon, too, where 9-11 attacks occurred. In other words, according to the Associate Press, "Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood." There is already a mosque near Ground Zero.

So how did the dark lie that a mosque is being proposed for the first time to be built near the site of the September 11, 2001 attacks flourish? Bloggers and pundits who drew attention to their sites with non-factual claims. The social media influence certainly grew when a former speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives climbed on board to give credence to the belief that Islamic radicalism is behind building, what in truth, would be another mosque in lower Manhattan.

"The folks who want to build this mosque -- who are really radical Islamists who want to triumphally prove that they can build a mosque right next to a place where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Islamists -- those folks don't have any interest in reaching out to the community. They're trying to make a case about supremacy." -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a potential 2012 presidential candidate.

Who benefits from such untruths? What is prompting some bloggers spewing religious hatred? We need a new and truthful narrative to set the record straight. We need more sociologists asking different kinds of questions about the relationship between hate and truth.

For more truths, see:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/searchS/?q=mosque+in+manhattan

King Memorial's Overcosts

2008-08-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

On June 12, 2008 Harry E. Johnson, Sr., president of the foundation to build a national memorial on the National Mall told the Washington Post that the foundation "had raised $82 milliion of its goal of $100 million needed to complete and maintain the project."

Now the foundation has announced that it has raised $98.8 million and that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given $3 million in donations. BUT... and here's the catch, even with that donation... it's going to need another more money, that is an additional $20 million. The reason: "because of rising security, design and construction costs." Now that is strange because on June 12, 2008 Russell Berman wrote in "The New York Sun" that the revised design for the proposed statue "makes no changes to King's pose or facial expression."

Since 1,000 tons of granite have yet to be shipped to the U.S.A. from China for the sculptor to reassemble on the National Mall... what security, design, and construction costs are involved? What has nearly $100 million been spent on for the last three years since ground was broken on the mall? How much is the Chinese sculptor being paid? How much is it going to cost to ship his work to this country? How does the MLK Foundation justify taking trips to Italy, China, and other countries to inspect granite? Why wasn't a national or international competition held for the statue of Dr. King as it was for the total design? Who is providing oversight of this historically important project so many of us - worldwide - really want to see become a reality on the Mall? A private foundation raising millions of dollars for a four-acre monument on the Tidal Basin, public property, apparently doesn't have to answer to anyone about how funds are used. But the well could soon run dry if the King family and the King Memorial Foundation are both seeking funds from the same corporations and groups. Only time will tell.

FEDERAL COMMISSION CRITICIZES PROPOSED Martin Luther King, Jr. Statue

2008-05-12T04:31:00.000-07:00

Under the headline "Unhappy with 'Confrontational' Image, U.S. Panel Wants King Statue Reworked (The Washington Post, 05-09-2008, page 1)... Michael Ruane reports that the seven-member U. S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks there is something wrong with the model of Dr. King being sculpted in China. The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial will be the last project on the National Mall in Washington, DC and the only one honoring a Black American. By law, as the Post points out, "no project like the memorial can go forward without approval from the commission" which advises the government on public design and aesthetics in the capital.

The Secretary of the Fine Arts Commission, Thomas E. Luebke, an architect sent a letter to the Martin Luther King National Memorial Project Foundation and the Regional Director of the National Park Service, National Capital Region (Joseph M. Lawler) on April 25, 2008. In that letter Luebke said that "the Commision members found that the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries." In other words, right now, Dr. King is being constructed to look like a political figure like Mao or some other dictator.

Because the Roma Design Group's original work approved by the Commission did not include Dr. King emerging gently out of a Stone of Hope, the Commission is now concerned that Dr. King is being pictured in a "confrontational" full-length pose and appears to be "affixed to the surface of the Stone of Hope." Using very strong words, the Commission wrote that "the proposed treatment of the sculpture - as the most iconographic and central element of the memorial to Dr. King - would be unfortunate and inappropriate as an expression of his legacy. We recommend strongly that the sculpture be reworked, both in form and modeling."

That sounds to this Blogger and other critics that the Commission wants CEO Harry Johnson and his group to start over. And that is exactly what thegibsonreport.blogspot.com has been calling for since the summer of 2007. Arguing that there were other problems besides the ethnicity of the chosen sculptor, this site noted FIVE FATAL FLAWS: (1) the selection process (flawed & biased); (2) a non-original model (sculptor is working from a picture, (3) historical inaccuracies (imagine a Babe Ruth statue swinging with the opposite hand). Such is the case when the Chinese sculptor takes "artistic license" by flipping the picture/negative so Dr. King could use his left hand to conveniently point to writing on one side of the stone rather than the other; (4) using a pose rejected by citizens in Rocky Mount, NC in 2003 (though Ohio sculptor Erik Blome correctly showed Dr. King holding a pen in his right-hand, citizens rejected the cross-armed pose because they said it was stiff and made Dr. King look arrogant). It should be noted that the statue was put in a warehouse and not initially put up as planned; (5) rejecting constructive criticism from professioral artists (earlier criticism from other sculptors and artistic advisors selected by the Memorial Foundation were booted or quit when they noted the Chinese sculptor's work looked more like a Communist leader than a spiritual leader).

There should be a congressional inquiry into the expensive outsourcing of such an important American project. The cost of sending 100 crates of granite to be assembled on the National Mall cut a whole lot of Americans out of work. We need to hear why the original Architect of Record was replaced with the Chinese sculptor that he had a hand in selecting to work under him.

Regardless of color, ethnicity, or religion... we all want Dr. King's memorial at the Tidal Basin to be an inspiring work of art. It is in that spirit that so many of us around the country have raised questions and concerns about questionable unilateral decisions about a national monument. Unlike the Statue of Liberty which was a gift, the King Memorial is this country's salute to an important man of non-violence.

It is our civic duty to voice serious concern, even if a project is privately funded, before the image of Dr. King is cast in granite in such a way that he looks like Eddie Murphy and assumes a stance that fails to capture the spirit of the drum major for peace. While the media typically looks for the sensational (a Chinese vs. Black sculptor), it is imperative that legislators and policy makers not get bogged down in that distraction.

Kudos to a federal panel for looking after the public interest and exercising its oversight duties.

The U. S. Commission on Fine Arts brilliantly captures the essence of the problem: Dr. King deserves better!

Hats Off to CFA for looking out for the interests of the American public. Too bad CFA became too sensitive to the fact that the Commission is all White AND refused to make the MLK Memorial Foundation really accountable in the public interest. In the end history will show that the CFA was right to object to an arrogant, confrontational depiction of Dr. King.

###

King Monument Criticized Over Mistakes

2007-08-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

Cite www.thegibsonreport.blogspot.com or email Blogger: takingcareof1@hotmail.com

...What were they thinking? CEO Harry Johnson, the Executive Architect (Ed Jackson), MLK Project Manager (David Hamilton), the Alpha Fraternity, and other members of the Martin Luther King Jr National Memorial Project Foundation... are drawing unnecessary NEGATIVE attention to the National Mall project scheduled to open in 2009.

...Do we really need to hear the media debate the ethnic background of the person sculpting the King STONE OF HOPE monument? It's distracting and uncivil. It could have been avoided because the King Foundation had to know a similar debate was waged in 2003 when a North Carolina city (Rocky Mount) rejected a monument using the same proposed stance for their park. The complaints that kept the monument from being erected for more than three years, were the charges that the sculptor was White, Dr. King crossing his arms with legs apart made him look arrogant, and... that the sculpture did not look like Dr. King. Those are some of the complaints being heard about Lei's clay model of Dr. King in 2007. Some even say the model looks more like Eddie Murphy than the Atlanta preacher.

...The King Foundation certainly could have anticipated similar public reaction heard in Rocky Mount, North Carolina... when it deliberately decided not to look for stonecutters in this country or to have artists compete for the honor of working on a monument for Dr. King. From newspaper accounts in 2006 and again in February 2007, it was obvious that the fundraising leaders knew of such potential problems when Foundation CEO Harry Johnson said after the Chinese sculptor's 2007 presentation to some Foundation members that Lei Yixin's race should not be a factor in preventing him from building the sculpture for Dr. King. In other words, Lei Yixin, who doesn't speak English and is guaranteed an income for life from the Chinese government... was hand-picked by a group of brothers who had fought for more than ten years to have Dr. King honored on the National Mall. No one bothered to ask, evidently, whether the sculptor could also do "realistic" models? Certainly, no one from the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project required Master Sculptor Lei Yixin to render or interpret his clay model into granite before the fact. That and the obvious lack of a world-wide competition for the honor of sculpting Dr. King raises some, pardon the pun, red flags? That Lei Yixin was approached in June 2006 because he could, as Harry Johnson told the Washington Post (8-15-07), "cut stone" doesn't quite make sense, given the number of stonecutters in this country. The MLK Committee's subsequent trips to Italy and China to inspect granite for the Dr. King monument and only belatedly to Atlanta (2007) to observe granite for other parts of the project on the mall... must have been costly.

Not even the fact that Lei Yixin will end up shipping 100 crates from China to have the 30-foot granite monument of Dr. King reassembled on the mall has been a cause for concern at project headquarters. Let's hope the granite and extra personnel are all included in the $132,000 check the Foundation gave Lei Yixin earlier this year.

BUT... the real issue, I contend, is not the race/ethnicity of the sculptor but the PROCESS! In other words, Lei Yixin was not selected competitively; the process was neither open nor transparent. That's the same problem that plagued Rocky Mount, NC (2003) until the city where Dr. King said in 1962 - "Rocky Mount, I have a dream tonight..." finally held a more open process.

It also should not be ignored that... Lei Yixin was picked in 2006 because he could follow the then Sculptor of Record (Ed Dwight) and the Roma Design Group's 2004 designs for the STONE OF HOPE. The public really didn't have to know about the in-house fighting between the National Memorial Project team and the sculptor Ed Dwight who by 2007 had already designed hundreds of mini-models of Dr. King that were sent to major donors.

The media will continue to play the race card because African Americans are fussing with African Americans. BUT my research reveals that that is a major mistake because there are more serious problems with the National Mall project. As a researcher, former professor of social movements and investigative reporter, what I am going to reveal might well raise some serious questions about the $82 million already raised/spent for the King memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

For now... look closely above at which hand Dr. King uses to hold his pen in Lei Yixin's clay models and in the Roma Design Group's rendition below of the STONE OF HOPE and MOUNTAIN OF DESPAIR.

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE? Which hand is Dr. King using to hold his pen in the pictures below? Is it the same hand Dr. King raises at the 1963 March on Washington? you can see the picture in the Foundation's fundraising material on its website?

Pen in Left hand!

How do the above and Lei Yixin's models above DIFFER from these below?

(Pen in Right Hand)

These statues are by Illinois Sculptor Erik Blome.

Blome's 2003 model of Dr. King for Rocky Mount, NC has pen in RIGHT hand. But the stance met with resistance by Rocky Mount, North Carolina residents.

At this point it's obvious that Lei Yixin's clay models of Dr. King are wrong!

If he carves granite with Dr. King using the left hand to hold his pen... the sculptor will have produced a monument that is historically not correct.

These are FATAL FLAWS involving the MLK project.

WORTH REMEMBERING:

The issue is about more than whether an African American should sculpt an African American, isn't it?

Right Hand!

So the list of problems with MLK National Memorial is growing: inaccurate inscriptions, producing an inaccurate 30-foot statue of Dr. King, failure to hold a national/international competition for a sculptor, moving drastically away from the original Roma Design, using granite from China rather than Georgia, incurring unnecessary expenses with trips to China, and giving away American jobs by OUTSOURCING the historic project to China.