H.S. Mural Gets Bad Rap

High school administrators have taken the palette out of the hands of a 14-year-old artist who had begun painting a hallway mural in tribute to four deceased rap music artists, questioning whether their lyrics and values made them appropriate subjects.

Richard Strey's project was a kind of Mount Rushmore for hip-hop, featuring the late rappers Eric "Easy-E" Wright, Tupac Shakur, Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace and Christopher Lee "Big Pun" Rios.

The work was stopped last week after Woodbury High School social worker found fault with the messages of the quartet, which she said are demeaning to women and angry.

Gloria Goode, who is black, said their lives and works contradict the school's teaching of "responsibility, restraint and respect."

Shakur and Wallace were shot to death. While their shortened lives are worthy of discussion, "to put them on walls and memorialize them kind of says they're heroes," Goode told the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill for Monday's editions.

To Strey, who is white, they are heroes. And he thinks there's a double standard that allows murals featuring rock stars Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles to remain on the walls while his portrait of rappers is stalled.

"As a student, I know what the student body feels about the music form," he said. "I would have never done the mural if I felt it would be offensive to anybody."

But he said he will not paint over the work he's begun.

About 200 of Strey's schoolmates signed a petition asking that the freshman be allowed to complete his 4-by-5 foot mural.

"I don't think they should discourage him," said sophomore Kristin Harshaw.

Superintendent Judith Wilson said she is considering what to do now with Strey's work-in-progress and other murals.

Wilson said several students were permitted started work on paintings in the school, but that she didn't know Strey's subject until after he had begun.

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Author: 6 ABC-AP