Artist attacked over children's skin tone in Arizona school mural

[EpyonXero]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ool-mural.html

Artists have been asked to lighten the colour of children's skin in a giant mural on the side of an Arizona primary school after complaints about their ethnicity.

The creators of the "Go On Green" mural, covering two walls outside the school in Prescott, 100 miles north of Phoenix, said they have put up with two months of "racial slander" from motorists driving past.

The artists blame the backlash on Steve Blair, a local councillor who used his radio show to campaign for the mural's removal.

He compared the mural, intended to promote environmentally-friendly transport, to "graffiti in LA" and argued it was inappropriate to feature a black child in a town with virtually none.

Other residents have described it as "tacky", "ugly" and "ghetto" since it was unveiled at the end of May.

"I am not a racist individual," Mr Blair said on his show show last month. "But I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's president of the United States today and based upon the history of this community, when I grew up we had four black families - who I have been very good friends with for years - to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, 'Why?'"

Staff at the Miller Valley Elementary School say the boy in the middle of the mural is supposed to be Hispanic, not black.

Jeff Lane, the school's principal, insisted his request for the faces in the mural to be lightened had nothing to do with race, but was intended to make them appear happier and brighter.

The mural race row has damaged an already tense situation in the state after Arizona introduced strict new immigration laws that critics say will encourage police to target people on the basis of their skin colour.

Like the rest of the state, Prescott's 43,000-strong population is overwhelmingly white, while eight per cent are Hispanics and other minorities together account for less than three per cent.

R E Wall, director of the Prescott Downtown Mural Project, said he and fellow members of the "Mural Mice" who created the painting on two exterior walls, were subjected to sustained abuse.

"The pressure stayed up consistently. We had two months of cars shouting at us," he said.

The "pressure" culminated in the request to lighten the forehead and cheeks of the boy to "make him look like he is coming into the light", he said.

The school has also asked for all the children's faces to appear more "radiant and happy", said Mr Wall.

According to Mr Lane, he also wants to "remove some shadowing that made the faces darker than they are".

Mr Blair said he was not a racist but "whenever people start talking about diversity, it's a word I can't stand".

Questioning whether the mural is representative of Prescott, he said: "The focus doesn't need to be on what's different, the focus doesn't need to be on the minority all the time."