@chaski Said 
Honest Abe the Statue,
I freed you, but you need to stay down there boy.
Lowly black man,
Ya'sa mas'sa Lincoln... I promise'n to be a good boy and stay in my place..
To be fair, the argument is that the black man, former slave, "...is not kneeling on two knees. He's rising. You look at his hands. His hands - he's pushing off. He's not shackled to anyone. He's holding the broken chains of slavery in his hands, signifying he's assuming his rightful place in freedom.
Personally, I think while that might have been the intent, to me the black man does not look like "he's pushing off" at all. If He was rising up, why wasn't he portrayed as being helped/lifted up by Lincoln... or actually standing up... kind of like "now you are an equal".
To me he looks like he is crouching down under Lincoln's hand, i.e. the older wiser white man.
But hey.... beauty is in the eye of the beholder... and as we all know, kneeling is a sign of disrespect...
I've never seen that statue before and for the life of me I can't see how the sculptor could possibly think that represents anything liberating, or even paternalistic in it.
It really does convey the impression of a man kneeling before his master. A gross mis-representation and I'm surprised it's never been removed before.
One presumes it was created after Lincoln's assassination. Had it been erected before his death I'm sure he'd have objected to this being a part of his legacy.
I think a statue with the freed man standing.... properly clothed and looking healthy, shaking hands with the president.... or something along those lines.... would have created the impression of the freed slave finally achieving dignity and liberty.
Poor statue in my opinion. It's not my place to tell Americans how to represent their history, but if it were here, I'd say it had to go.
Jul 08, 2020 @ 00:40:33
Fixed that for you.
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