So my regular job is like, making a boomer mobile game. It sucks. But occasionally I get to make something cool that I'm actually happy with..... However, equally as occasionally I have to learn some just... absolutely wretched things.
This is a low poly of the MLK jr Memorial in Washington. If you haven't seen the original, I highly suggest checking it out. It's conceptually one of the coolest goddamn memorials I've ever seen. You walk through two large stone mountains with a vertical slat cut through them - to come up behind this. "The Stone of Hope". It's conceptually, super powerful.
But despite that, a design choice was overlooked in such a deeply ironic and cruel way.
In researching the statue, I found a really important comment "Why is a black man memorialized in white granite?" and whew - let me tell you, I think you couldn't have chosen a worse material for this.
You see, white granite in particular has been a very popular medium for this kind of work for thousands of years. Rome used it! Greece used it! It's common throughout Washington!
But white granite has a history associated with it, or rather - the reason white granite was popular was almost erased.
You see, white granite was likely popular for two reasons. One, it's strong - very strong. Granite is really resistant to wear and it's why we have architecture that stood thousands of years.
However, white granite also takes color quite well. Roman and Greek statues where often elaborately painted, however - throughout history that paint was erased in order for Roman and Greek history to become "white history". Rome and Greece where both very multicultural, but in order to enforce white supremacy, the color of statues was rubbed off.
Now, hundreds of years later, another person of color had their skin reduced to the same white granite as the other victims of whitewashing.
Yeah it's.... pretty bad. It sucks too because I feel that this memorial has an incredible concept.
