Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma schools chief who mandated that all schools teach the Bible, was caught watching porn in his office.
Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma schools chief who mandated that all schools teach the Bible, was caught watching porn in his office.
i grew up in the state.
it’s honestly not so bad, most people are reasonable and not entirely insane. at least any more so than the rest of the USA. i’ve traveled all over the country and seen that 1. most places here are, for all their differences, pretty similar and 2. an oddly large number of people will, without any irony at all, ask dumb as shit questions like “oh you guys have houses? i thought they still lived in tipis there…”, which is part of what compels me to clear up the image that Oklahoma is just some backwater. OKC and Tulsa are both larger cities than New Orleans, and by a non-insignificant population count too.
it’s just one of those states where the republicans have a gerrymandered, fascist hold on the government and have for a long time. they win virtually every single election at every level in Oklahoma and control the entire state government, all appointments are basically made solely by the republican party here. they control what does and doesn’t pass the legislature. yet, demographically, the republicans do not have nearly the super-majority that would justify this power. we’ve been prisoners of y’al-qaeda for basically the entire history of the state. and this isn’t by any long shot the only state like this, it just might be one of the worst. they test their shitty fucking playbooks and “go-fuck-yourself-with-razorblades” laws out on us because it is a large market/population. a century and a half of being the american fascist guinea pigs has led us to be one of the civil societies here in the US that is in the most disrepair. we’re near bottom or dead last for virtually any metric of societal health when compared to other states.
don’t hate these people please, not saying you are but it’s a common sentiment. i fucking despised the south and would belittle southerners when i was a naive teen bc of my resentment for their racism and general ethos. a lot of them are fucked up, but for a large number of them, they are victims too.
Ehh… As someone who currently lives here, things got a lot worse after trump and covid. I would say more than half the population here are bigots and proud to lack any kind of empathy towards anyone who isn’t exactly like them.
Also, the state isn’t really gerrymandered. It’s just that the only two slightly progressive areas are OKC and Tulsa, and even they don’t usually vote blue for statewide or federal elections. Oklahoma is securely the most conservative state in the union. Imo people here are just shittier than anywhere else I’ve lived, and I grew up moving to a new state every 3 years.
I mean the state idolizes Sooners, which were basically white people stealing from each other so they could steal as much native land as possible. The culture here is just based on being proud, being an asshole, and taking pride in how much of an asshole you are.