What? More Racism In Arizona? Who Didn't See This Coming?

Out in Prescott, Arizona, a group of artists were asked to paint a mural on the wall of Miller Elementary, entitled "Go On Green", that was designed as a campaign for environmentally friendly transportation. It featured portraits of four children, with a Hispanic boy as the dominant figure.

Uh oh. Hispanic. Arizona. I smell trouble.

The artists who designed and painted the mural were subsequently asked to "lighten" the faces of children depicted in the mural; and, of course, by lighten, I mean whiten. The school's principal says the request was only to fix shading and had nothing to do with political pressure.

Fix the shading. From dark, or Hispanic, to light, or white. R.E. Wall, the director of Prescott's Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were then subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting: "We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars....We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of [epithet for Blacks] and [epithet for Hispanics]."

Wall said it was school Principal Jeff Lane who pressured him into making the children's faces appear happier and brighter, but Lane, who said he'd received just three complaints about the mural, said his suggestions had nothing to do with political pressure. "We asked them to fix the shading on the children's faces. We were looking at it from an artistic view. Nothing at all to do with race."

But, um, political pressure did come from one city councilman, Steve Blair, who was the ringleader of a public campaign on his radio show to remove the mural. Blair, in a broadcast last month, complained that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American, saying: "[It] looks like a guy black guy brown guy holding a stick and a big flowers and stuff, what was it supposed to mean? I don't know what it's supposed to mean, I really don't. If it means going green, what does that mean?....To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?"

Some ask why.....others ask why not?

Blair insists the controversy isn't about racism but he believes the mural was created to spark some sort of racial controversy where none existed before; because there's a large Hispanic boy on it. And then Blair shoves his foot further in his mouth: "Personally, I think it's pathetic. You have changed the ambience of that building to excite some kind of diversity power struggle that doesn't exist in Prescott, Arizona. And I'm ashamed of that."

No, Steve, you created the fight. The children of the school loved the mural; their parents did, too. It wasn't until you became incensed at the idea of an African-American kid, or, God forbid, an Hispanic kid, being featured predominantly on the wall that you took to the airwaves to spew your hate.

Jan Brewer must be calling you to join her team as we speak.

See, the actual faces in the mural were drawn from photographs of actual children attending Miller; and everyone but Steve Blair, and those narrow-mined bigots who think as he does, understood that. And supported it. There were street-side protests against changing the mural; parents of students enrolled at the school expressed their outrage. News of more racism in Arizona--on the heels of Jan "My father died in Germany fighting the Nazi's" Brewer's new Show-Me-Your-Papers law-- spread like wildfire.

And so the principal backed down. He admitted he was wrong, and the mural, much to Steve Blair's chagrin, will be painted as it was intended.

And the news gets better.

The Arizona FOX affiliate, KYCA, which airs Steve Blair's show, fired him over the mural controversy; well, he wasn't actually fired because of the controversy, he was fired because he created the controversy.

Do I blame Steve Blair? Sure, somewhat. But a lot of the blame for this kind of behavior has to be lain at the jackbooted feet of Jan Brewer. Ever since she started her rant on illegal immigration, there have been outbreaks of racial tension throughout the state. And I don't think for a moment, that, had Jan Brewer not wanted to see every Hispanic person's papers, that this mural would have sparked such outrage.

Even in the tiny twisted brain of Steve Blair.