The latest development concerning Steve Blair, whom I blogged about yesterday, is that he has been fired by the radio station that hosted his talk show. More here, including audio of an interview with Blair.
Also, if you're going to be in the area on Saturday 5 June, you might want to have a look at this Facebook page, "Protest Racism in Prescott, AZ!" Could be that more info will be added to that page, so you might have a look in any case.
(x-posted)
Yeah, that's a pretty lame title, isn't it?
Speaking of Arizona, how's this for the It's All Connected Department?
In "what is believed to be the first city in California to approve a measure supporting the legislation," Yorba Linda has "approved a resolution this week supporting Arizona’s illegal-immigration law."
(Because those quotes came from the Los Angeles Times, a notorious member of The Biased Liberal Media, they omitted the modifier disgraceful before "Arizona's.")
Yorba Linda, as you may recall if you've been unable to block it from your memory, is best known as the birthplace of Richard M. Nixon. Who was also not at all racist.
I can't add anything else to what Ken Layne has to say about it.
(x-posted)
A group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school.
The project's leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children's ethnicity. [...]
[...]
R.E. Wall, director of Prescott's Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town's most prominent intersections.
"We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars," Wall said. "We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics)."
Wall said school Principal Jeff Lane pressed him to make the children's faces appear happier and brighter.
[...]
City Councilman Steve Blair spearheaded a public campaign on his talk show at Prescott radio station KYCA-AM (1490) to remove the mural.
In a broadcast last month, according to the Daily Courier in Prescott, Blair mistakenly complained that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American, saying: "To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?"
Blair could not be reached for comment Thursday. In audio archives of his radio show, Blair discusses the mural. He insists the controversy isn't about racism but says the mural is intended to create racial controversy where none existed before.
"Personally, I think it's pathetic," he says. "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."
In other words, LibrulsAreTheRealRacists!!!1!
For the record, Steve Stockmar, City Editor of The Prescott Daily Courier, reports that Blair's line was:
"I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's President of the United States today ..."
Other sources* (e.g.) have transcribed the moment in a bit more detail:
On May 21, Blair said, "I am not a racist individual, 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?'"
Blair also admits that "whenever people start talking about diversity, it's a word [i] can't stand."
About that diversity thing, not to mention who served as the models for the artists, we turn back to the first source:
Faces in the mural were drawn from photographs of children enrolled at Miller Valley, a K-5 school with 380 students and the highest ethnic mix of any school in Prescott.
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* If you'd like to listen for yourself, visit the KYCA archives, in the "KYCA PM" section, and look for the 5/21 show titled "The Birthday Boy," with the blurb "Birthday boy Steve wraps up the week talking about the mural at Miller Valley School."
KYCA is, unsurprisingly, an affiliate of Fox News Radio.
(x-posted)
Will Arizona Governor Jan Brewer also have to go to jail, under your new law?
(pic sources: B/|NGER and The Erstwhile Conservative)
Sheesh. Forget about secession of these dumb hick states. How about we expel them?
Not content with passing a law that empowers the police to harass anyone whose skin is deemed insufficiently white, Arizona Republicans have now doubled trebled down on the stupid, looking to pass a law that would ban ethnic studies in any school that receives state funding and another that would ban teachers with "accents" from teaching kids for whom English isn't a first language. (Would this include Sarah Palin, one wonders?)
(h/t: Ken Layne)
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This thinly-veiled racism has me too discouraged to say much at this point, so I'll steer you to Timothy Egan's latest -- "Desert Derangement Syndrome" -- which is righteous.
People Uniting Against McCain.
Unlike Attaturk, I'm almost ready to move to Arizona for what's sure to be some entertaining Angry Johnny Moments.
Mavericky!
Mr. McCain now sharply criticizes the bailout bill he voted for, pivoted from his earlier position that the Guantánamo Bay detention facility should be closed, offered only a muted response to the Supreme Court’s decision undoing campaign finance laws and backed down from statements that gays in the military would be O.K. by him if the military brass were on board.
No surprise here. As we have been noting, the one thing you can count on John McCain doing is fleeing to his right at the drop of a challenge, but if you'd like some more details on his most recent flip-floppery, the NYT has finally gotten around to writing them up.