http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/34838/arizona-principal-cancels-whitewash-of-controversial.../
PRESCOTT, Arizona— Following an outpouring of criticism from across
the United States, an Arizona elementary school principal has
announced that he was reversing his decision to lighten the skin of
black and Hispanic students depicted in a new school mural, according
to the Examiner.
The controversy in Prescott has become the latest flash point for
debate over the state's anti-immigration posture, which some have
decried as racist.
During a radio interview last month, Prescott city councilman Steve
Blair set the issue in motion when he criticized the Miller Valley
Elementary School mural, an artwork promoting environmentally
responsible public transportation that features depictions of real
children of various races who currently attend the school.
The central figure in the mural is a black child, and a Hispanic child
is included on the right. “To depict the biggest picture on the
building as a black person,” Blair said, “I would have to ask the
question: ‘Why?’” Motorists objecting to the mural, meanwhile, began
hurling racial slurs at the artists working on the mural.
