Chosen from 126 submissions, Hank Willis Thomas’s concept was officially unveiled at the Boston Common last week.
It weighs 19 tons, cost $10.5 Million, and looks—for lack of a better term—phallic. But only from one angle!
It’s called The Embrace, and it’s supposedly modeled on the famous 1964 photo of Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife Coretta Scott King sharing a hug after he won the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, the sculpture features neither of their faces, nor their chests. Rather, it’s two interlocked round tubes that morph into mammalian forearms and, eventually, human hands.
“Conceptual artist” Hank Willis Thomas’ other works include juxtaposed images of slavery and professional sports, deconstructed United States flags, and interactive constructions promoting moral relativism.
In 2016, Hank Willis Thomas co-founded For Freedoms, the nation’s first artist-run super PAC aimed at creating disruptive, politically engaged works amidst the 2016 election. The PAC status has since been terminated, and For Freedoms now functions as an LLC.
Less regulatory oversight, perhaps? Who knows?
Thomas is also a former Soros Equality Fellow, sponsored by the Open Society Foundation in 2017 to “discredit distortions in the racial narrative.”
His art supports Marxism, and he’s backed by globalist elites. So of course, The Boston Globe and The New York Times lauded the addition to the Common as if Thomas were Michelangelo and The Embrace were The David: its design, “triumphal” yet “intimate;” its construction, “herculean.”
I had to not only see the sculpture for myself but also gauge public opinion—the sentiments of real Bostonians who must stare at this thing every day.
Now of course, before we proceed, it’s crucial to note the Embrace Boston’s Woke Indigenous Land Disclaimer that, I suspect, must supplement all public art henceforth:
We acknowledge that Boston is situated on the traditional homelands of the Massachusetts People…We do it to raise greater public consciousness of First Nation sovereignty and cultural rights as a small step toward equitable relationships and reconciliation.
As I had expected, no one I spoke with had anything nice to say about the art itself. The only compliment toward the actual, tangible figure I could gather was how “genius” welders are, fitting the bronze pieces together so meticulously.
There were students of all ages at the welders’ masterwork, forced by their instructors to make a pilgrimage to the sculpture. Elementary students were positioned up against the bronze erection for a photo op. Meanwhile, seemingly perplexed groups of college students from MassArt mingled together, coerced to reflect, and, I suspect, eventually produce an essay, on The Embrace.
Many had shown up voluntarily, meeting their self-assessed “anti-racist” quota for the week. Speaking with some of them, I concluded that no one can honestly say anything positive about the design itself. The idea and the message, they parroted from the woke reviews, were “powerful” or “important,” and everyone loved those. But, from one angle, most admitted the statue looks “a little off.”
However, reality-based Bostonians weren’t afraid to call it like they saw it. “Boston Common” trended on Twitter for hours on Monday, and not for good reason.
In the newest edition of @emmafoleymedia Asks, check out what people have to say about The Embrace, the unusual new sculpture at Boston Common! pic.twitter.com/8J5iK9NWfm
— Howie Carr (@HowieCarrShow) January 19, 2023
While I was paying my respects, one man could be heard shouting from an adjacent path: “It looks like a giant c**k!”
A few onlookers were even convinced that there was a sinister, ulterior motive behind the work.
“I think,” said one woman, “there’s a lot of people out there trying to push an agenda—a sexualized agenda—towards children. It’s quite obvious that reality is not what they’ve led us to believe.”
Another man was noticeably angry, carrying a megaphone and calling out to other visitors.
“Once I got a chance to see it, 360 degrees, I noticed at an angle it looks like two hands holding a penis. I called the mayor. I emailed the mayor. In my personal opinion, it needs to be covered up, it needs to be fixed, or it needs to be destroyed immediately!”
He added, “This is a crime! This is a travesty! Anyone can see the angle. You’ve got kids running around here, looking at this thing.”
“If you’re walking down on this path,” one man said, gesturing towards Tremont Street, “it kind of looks like hands holding a penis.”
When creating a three-dimensional work, he explained, the sculptor should “make sure all dimensions look…appropriate.”
“But I don’t want to bash it,” he added. Exactly. That’s just it.
In the Religion of Leftism, you must proclaim that the ugly art is “powerful” and “important.” If you don’t acknowledge the indigenous land, you’re a colonialist, and if you point out the phallic image, you’re “juvenile.”
But not everyone is stuck in the woke cult. Even Seneca Scott, relative of Coretta Scott King, called out the emperor’s nakedness.
“The mainstream media … was reporting on it like it was all beautiful, ’cause they were told they had to say that,” Scott told the New York Post.
Don’t worry. I’ll say it: That bronze thing in the Boston Common is hideous, and yes, it does look like male genitalia.
