Pari Wall News Today

He keeps ‘rock-star hours’ at Wall of Sound Productions in Marion

Why would a mural showing kids smiling and having fun make some people so angry? would you believe it has to do with the color of their skin? this is a mural at miller valley elementary school in prescott, arizona. school officials told the artists to lighten the skin tones of two of the minority students, the children on it, but they later backed off. this comes while race relations are under a microscope in arizona, which begins enforcing its new immigration law next month. pamela smith and ar...

First command came from to lighten the skin tones. >> okay. what about who are these models? where did you pick the models for the mural? >> the models were actually children from the school. they had contests who would win and be chosen to pose for us. >> ari, when you found out about it, what was your response? they later backed off. did you say im not going to do it? did you ever consider it? >> no. i never seriously considered it. as an artist, myself and pamela had the picture fully under c...

Its a sign of -- its a symbol of pride and service to our community. >> okay. so ari, just before i thought people would wonder at home why youre wearing those. lets get to this controversy now. i want to be specific about this, about who asked you to lighten the skin tones of the children on this mural. who did it, pam? >> well there was a meeting between some of the teachers because they had been under pressure from people in the community, and thats where the first command came from to lighte...

Arizona which begins enforcing its new immigration law next month. pamela smith and ari wall are the artists who painted the wall. they join us from phoenix, arizona, live. thanks for joining us. i love your hats. before we get to the controversy, what are the hats for? >> well, the hats are what we consider our uniform for the mural mice in prescott. it is a symbol of pride and service to our community. >> so ari, i just thought people would wonder why you are wearing those. i want to be specif...

Source of it was concern about the right-looking kids on that wall. >> so do you think it was based -- you think it was racism, ari? >> oh, yeah, i do. not -- >> pam? >> i absolutely do. and there were several times when i was painting outside with the little ones when motorists would drive by and yell racial slurs out the windows, and it would upset the children. >> whats going on there? >> its hard to explain. you know, it didnt make a lot of sense to us. neither one of us are racist people. a...

People. those are real children, real kids that go to that school not contrived from somewhere else. they have feelings. they have been affected by this. it is a shame they should have played that card, unfortunately. >> ari, why did they initially back off? >> i think they underestimated the support we had in our community and had we not had that support im pretty sure they would have had us change it. >> very interesting conversation. well check in on them later on cnn. something you need to...