I typed up a whole thing to rebut this, but it’s not worth it. I think I’ve expressed the counter-argument clearly enough already for anyone who might want a differing view. I shall agree to disagree and move on.
You cannot possibly be this tone deaf.
You need to educate yourself sooner rather than later before you offend everyone who might be giving you the benefit of a doubt right now.
What is it you think I said?
It’s not about what was said, but how.
I presume you didn’t mean anything by it, but the word “uppity” has a ton of baggage from its racist history, and so using it when talking about a civil rights activist (and specifically someone defending a civil rights activist) is not the best.
To quote Dictionary.com
Uppity means “haughty” and “snobbish”—an adjective for someone who puts on airs, someone who is self-important. But, this descriptor has a very racist past, used particularly to disparage Black people as “not remembering their place as inferior.”
Given this explicitly racist past, it is a good idea to cut down on using uppity.
I actually agree with your statement—even @ShadowFacts 's link said that the purpose of the statue was to commemorate the Kings and mimic the photo, rather than focusing on generic equity. I personally think that, to go that route, they should have made it more abstract.
But the people involved are not being “uppity” when they say it’s supposed to be about generic equity.
Moderating:
Holy ####, I can’t even believe you are accusing people who disagree with you of being “uppity” in a thread about a statue of Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King. Since you seem not to have noticed, I’ll refer you to BigT’s post. Yes, that’s what people trying to keep Black people “in their place” (which is to say, in the underclass) say. That word has so much baggage you could travel for a month with it. I suggest you apologize and quietly back away, now.
And everyone else, please don’t refer to his use of “uppity” in this thread again. Thanks.
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The Boston Globe has an article up today about the sculpture and the…varied 
reactions to it, including a salient comparison to the unveiling of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
So far, I’ve heard it referred to as, “The Moebious Dick” and, being in Boston, the “Big Hug.”
How ridiculous! First of all, I can’t make head or tail out of it. Second of all, I hate it.
Silly question but, who knows, we have so many educated people here that one or more of you might actually know about city planning. Okay, when a city engages an artist to create a sculpture for it, don’t the people tasked with that assignment ask for a sketch showing what the sculpture is going to look like? If so, isn’t that sketch shown and discussed at a meeting of the city’s governing body?
I just don’t get it.
I posted the exact process for this particular commission, along with a link to the website for the memorial that explains it, earlier in this very thread. Scroll up and be informed
This is what makes the piece seem off to me… it’s hard to envision the people when there are significant anatomical impossiblities to the sculpture.
Maybe it’s not meant to be a literal representation, but then so much of the hands and arms are literal… I think it’s mix of modes causes understandable disparities in responses.
I look at it in a certain way, and I hear:
Hot dogs, Armour Hot Dogs…
I am very sorry for my use of that word. I was ignorant about the baggage it carried but that does not change how people rightfully feel about it nor excuse me for using it. I have been schooled on this and will certainly try to be better in the future.
I apologize unreservedly to the SDMB and its readers.
Leslie Jones weighed in (hilariously):
(edit: I see it’s been posted already, whoops!)
Thanks!
And this is good enough to be worth posting again.
I wonder if anyone has asked the sculptor for a comment on Leslie Jones’ comments?
Honestly, I don’t think she has said anything that I—were I the creator—would want to comment on. She never outright gave it a bad review. She essentially said only: (1) white people butt out, and (2) it reminds her of cunnilingus. Should anyone ask em to react, I’d advise em to refrain from comment.
I could definitely imagine a small sketch of this not having the same reaction. Part of the issue is that it’s very large, so the eye can only focus on a part of it at a time, and sometimes that part is reminiscent of something unexpected. In a drawing, or a rotating image on a computer or something, you would take in the whole thing, and probably with the right context, because the artist would start with the best angle.