Martin Luther King Tut

I finally found an article about the protest that I detailed in an earlier post (you need to read it, it's pretty good if I say so myself). Here's the crux of the story (h/t The Corner):

US black activists demanded that a bust of Tutankhamun be removed from a landmark exhibition of artefacts from the Egyptian boy king's tomb because the statue portrays him as white.

The bust that activists object to is a central part of "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," the first US exhibition of relics from king Tut's tomb in nearly 30 years, which opens here Thursday amid Hollywood fanfare.

The face of the legendary pharaoh, who died around 3,300 years ago at the age of just 19, was reconstructed earlier this year through images collected through Cat Scans of his mummy, found near Luxor in Egypt in 1922.

But Legrand Clegg, a historian and prosecutor of the Los Angeles area city of Compton, is demanding that the bust of King Tut be removed from the show because its rendition of his face is a "distortion of reality."

"They have depicted King Tut as white, but the ancient Egyptians were black people," he told AFP.

We do not need modern scientists to reconstruct the bust and tell us what to see. Do not deprive black children of their heritage," Legrand said in an appeal to organisers to remove the likeness from display.

Here's some of the brilliance of the protest leader:

"There is no evidence that King Tut was white," Clegg told city officials at a public meeting last week. "Egypt is on the continent of Africa."

Clegg maintains that the inhabitants of ancient Egypt were descended from the black Nubian people that inhabited that country and neighbouring Ethiopia.

He said his group would protest as long as there was a "suppression of black history," that he said was "conspiratorial" and "has to stop."

Let's see if I follow this. If Egypt is on the continent of Africa, and you're born in Egypt, you're automatically going to be black. That makes about as much sense as saying if you're born in a garage you're automatically going to be a Pontiac.

For Pete's sake, what difference does it make what color Tut was? Is there some type of special racial pride here that I'm missing here? Tut was a boy king who died young and apparently didn't accomplish much except managing to remain hidden from grave robbers until an archeologist could find him. Now that's an accomplishment any race could be....uh, ho hum...about.