In the "responses to liberal criticism", he says this:
One of the most ridiculous criticisms I have read is that I don't have enough minorities in the painting. The way people throw around the word "racist" these days is overkill. From the beginning of the painting I chose to include a variety for ethnicities under the "Strong Americans" category. I also used different races in the background where I could. One of the most important positions in the painting is where the black U.S. soldier is standing. Originally, I had Martin Luther King Jr. here. He was so important for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement. I removed him because of copyright issues with the King Foundation. Although disappointed, I thought a good substitute would be the soldier.
And some of his best friends are black, too!
I counted the people in the painting. There are 60. Of those, there are two black historical figures (Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman), one American Indian historical figure (Sequoyah), two nameless black people (the Union soldier and the college student), the soldier named King, and a nameless immigrant who may be East Asian (he's the one who's holding up his hand in shock and awe at God's power or wtfever). Look how enlightened he is: he put
seven people of color into a painting of 60 people, mostly in the back rows where they're basically unrecognizable. He has
almost as many people of color as he has soldiers.
And you're right, Kuja, the "tribute" to King is pretty ridiculous. King was vehemently against the Vietnam War, and was a professional pain in the ass to the Johnson administration about it; why would the artist portray him as a modern soldier? I guess the antiwar activism didn't fit into the artist's milquetoast conception of King, did it?
