The bronze sculpture is intentionally unassuming, depicting an anonymous Black woman, casually dressed, with a neutral expression on her face and her hands on her hips.

But as soon as the 12-foot statue was erected last month in Times Square, it touched off a roiling debate — one that reflects both a long-simmering argument over public monuments, and a very 2025 political dispute about diversity and race in America.

A columnist for Fox News wondered why a statue of an “angry Black lady” had been displayed in the same city where a contentious monument of Theodore Roosevelt had been removed a few years back, while a writer for The Federalist described the work as “leftist cultural warfare.”

“This is what they want us to aspire to be?” Jesse Watters, the Fox News host, recently asked on his show. “If you work hard you can be overweight and anonymous?” He added, “It’s a D.E.I. statue.”

As the conversation has intensified, criticism has emerged from several angles: from those seeking to preserve the country’s historical monuments; from people wondering if the piece employed stereotypical imagery; from critics calling its message and execution ham fisted. But social media has been overrun with commenters, often anonymous, hurling overt racism and sexism.

To the artist and the organizers of the public exhibition, the backlash — however unsavory — effectively justifies the sculpture’s existence at a time when the Trump administration and its allies are targeting all manner of things involving nonwhite people as “D.E.I.”