Latina Artist's Mural Causes Stir in Times Square

Sofia Maldonado's Times Square mural has caused quite a stir. Some say it is offensive. Others, like Keysha Whitaker of Single Women Rule, think Black folks need to take a chill pill

I am sick and tired of black folks protesting stuff they have no business protesting.

The object of my latest disgust is a fledgling uprising against Puerto Rican/Cuban artist Sofia Maldonado, a 26-year old Brooklyn resident. Maldonado painted a 92-foot mural that is located at 215 West 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues in Manhattan.

Organized primarily by the “Urban Community Council” and a Meetup Group “New York City Black Professionals”, the protest claims that Maldonado’s mural negatively portrays Black and Latino women. Anthony Herbert, the founder of the Urban Community Council, a “social organization” that works to find funds for families of gun violence victims, held a press conference on March 11.

“The way the women are depicted, it is clearly very disrespectful. They are scantily clad and it is disrespectful to any upstanding women in the community. It’s a negative representation of what we in our community are trying to avoid,” said Herbert. “We have to shed a positive light. They’re [women in the mural] bent over, the implication that their breasts are coming out, it’s just ridiculous.”

Alberto Magnan is the owner of Magnan Metz Gallery and has been representing Maldonado since 2005. “Sofia has done many murals in Puerto Rico, New York, and Connecticut, some in neighborhoods that were very Puerto Rican, Latin or black,” said Magnan. “We’ve never had any reaction like this before; in fact people have always loved it.”

Magnan said Maldonado calls the women in her mural “Supergirls” and speculates that Herbert “may not know what Sofia is about.”

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