{"id":348175,"date":"2018-02-14T05:26:32","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T04:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/affirmative-action-portraits\/"},"modified":"2018-02-14T05:26:32","modified_gmt":"2018-02-14T04:26:32","slug":"affirmative-action-portraits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/affirmative-action-portraits\/","title":{"rendered":"Affirmative-Action Portraits"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\">\n<p><em>Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, February 13, 2018<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Third-rate portraits portend a Third-World nation.<\/p>\n<p>When the collapse begins, people generally don\u2019t realize it. Rarely do statesmen acknowledge the Golden Age of their nation has passed; every leader tells his people their best days lie ahead. And the rituals of statecraft, above all, are designed to impose a sense of continuity and eternity. The nation is forever, the state is uncontested, and the polity is essentially the same as it was when it was founded. Even a revolutionary regime tries to co-opt the legitimacy of its predecessors, not confess to the masses that it is composed of mediocrities and frauds. Decline is usually subtle.<\/p>\n<p>Except when it\u2019s not. Like when the official paintings of Barack and Michelle Obama were unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The President of the United States is the head of state as well as the head of government. The official portrait is a serious matter. Whatever we think of a president or his policies, he represents the nation. Thus, the official representation of a president is in some sense a representation of the nation.<\/p>\n<p>President Obama chose as the artist for his portrait one Kehinde Wiley, a diversity twofer who is both black and gay. Mr. Wiley\u2019s prints, all of which feature non-whites, portray blacks framed in kaleidoscopic backgrounds of flowers. This means Mr. Wiley does not have to grapple with perspective, and it gives each paining a cheap look,&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/redice.tv\/news\/affirmative-action-portraits\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, February 13, 2018 Third-rate portraits portend a Third-World nation. When the collapse begins, people generally don\u2019t realize it. Rarely do statesmen acknowledge the Golden Age of their nation has passed; every leader tells his people their best days lie ahead. And the rituals of statecraft, above all, are designed to impose [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2520,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-348175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2520"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}