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I don’t even know where to start with Oklahoma right now. But people keep asking me, so
A THREAD ABOUT NOT KNOWING WHERE TO EVEN START WITH OKLAHOMA RN https://twitter.com/CalNBC/status/1273416410283290625?s=20
A THREAD ABOUT NOT KNOWING WHERE TO EVEN START WITH OKLAHOMA RN https://twitter.com/CalNBC/status/1273416410283290625?s=20
1st of all: blessings and love to my many Oklahoma friends. (Please be careful today.)
I’m not from OK, but I wrote a whole book about the place — I read stacks of history books and fell in love with it and met incredible people. I have feelings. https://twitter.com/nickchihuahua/status/1274203802640371712?s=20
I’m not from OK, but I wrote a whole book about the place — I read stacks of history books and fell in love with it and met incredible people. I have feelings. https://twitter.com/nickchihuahua/status/1274203802640371712?s=20
People ask me why Oklahoma keeps popping up in the national zeitgeist: Watchmen, Killers of the Flower Moon, this rally.
I think it's bc OK's history is a perfect distillation—just pure uncut grade-A cocaine—of all the deep sins we are revolting against. https://twitter.com/annahulkower/status/1273440558346678272?s=20
I think it's bc OK's history is a perfect distillation—just pure uncut grade-A cocaine—of all the deep sins we are revolting against. https://twitter.com/annahulkower/status/1273440558346678272?s=20
Indigenous genocide & betrayal
anti-Black racism
The foundational American crimes — but with the extra drama of OKLAHOMA: this wacky patch of "Wild West" lore that became a state basically YESTERDAY. Most Americans have never heard OK's stories, and they are incredible.
anti-Black racism
The foundational American crimes — but with the extra drama of OKLAHOMA: this wacky patch of "Wild West" lore that became a state basically YESTERDAY. Most Americans have never heard OK's stories, and they are incredible.
(I mean, we could go deeper about the sins Oklahoma embodies:
truly bonkers city planning
the fetishization of corporate capitalism / tax breaks / oil ("FREEDOM") over civic health & a functional community
violent anti-gov rhetoric combined w generous federal handouts
but )
truly bonkers city planning
the fetishization of corporate capitalism / tax breaks / oil ("FREEDOM") over civic health & a functional community
violent anti-gov rhetoric combined w generous federal handouts
but )
BOOM TOWN was supposed to take me 1 year and be about OKC’s NBA team.
It took me 5 years and was — unavoidably — largely about systemic racism.
Oklahoma taught me most of what I know about White supremacy. https://twitter.com/shamblanderson/status/972136668818964480?s=20
It took me 5 years and was — unavoidably — largely about systemic racism.
Oklahoma taught me most of what I know about White supremacy. https://twitter.com/shamblanderson/status/972136668818964480?s=20
I always tell Okla. audiences: trying to understand this place without acknowledging White supremacy is like trying to understand the solar system w/o acknowledging gravity.
It determines the shape of everything: where you live / work / drive / shop, what you read / think / say.
It determines the shape of everything: where you live / work / drive / shop, what you read / think / say.
(This is true for literally every place in the USA, obviously. White people, if you don’t know the real history of your town / city / region, please look it up.) https://twitter.com/nick_w_estes/status/1272291804281331712?s=20
Anyway, from the beginning, Oklahoma has been an absolute carnival of White supremacy. The modern state was founded in the dramatic "Land Run" of 1889—a huge federal gift of stolen Indigenous land.
(Stolen=shorthand for overlapping waves of genocidal violence & treaty-breaking.)
(Stolen=shorthand for overlapping waves of genocidal violence & treaty-breaking.)
Some Black leaders hoped that Okla might actually become an all-Black state.
But White supremacy was too strong, & closer to the opposite happened. (Tho there were a # of proud all-Black towns.)
OK was OFFICIALLY anti-Black. Senate Bill #1 was Jim Crow.
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=SE017
But White supremacy was too strong, & closer to the opposite happened. (Tho there were a # of proud all-Black towns.)
OK was OFFICIALLY anti-Black. Senate Bill #1 was Jim Crow.
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=SE017
And yet there were large & growing Black communities, which produced some of the great resistance figures in US history.
Roscoe Dunjee, publisher of OKC's East Side newspaper, strategically tested OK's laws & won (w Thurgood Marshall) huge national victories for the early NAACP.
Roscoe Dunjee, publisher of OKC's East Side newspaper, strategically tested OK's laws & won (w Thurgood Marshall) huge national victories for the early NAACP.
Dunjee wrote 100 years ago, but much of it applies perfectly well to today:
"This civilization is going down in chaos—out of it will rise a better world."
"This civilization is going down in chaos—out of it will rise a better world."
Clara Luper, great American badass who organized the US's 1st sustained sit-in movement in 1958 & kept it up for 6 years, desegregating OKC & beyond — & then kept organizing. She was arrested 26 times. "We love these white people so much that we are going to make them do right."
"The doctrine of non-violence is rooted in the fundamental truth that whites are human," Clara Luper wrote. "We aren't defeating him, we'll be just removing his hostility and insecurities which will prepare him to function as a whole man in a Democratic Society."
And of course, the infamous Tulsa Massacre.
NOT a “race riot,” as it has been called for decades (language I reproduced in my book, I'm sorry to say).
"Riot" diffuses responsibility (& stops insurance $$). This was an organized White attack. https://twitter.com/michele_norris/status/1271151759042510848?s=20
NOT a “race riot,” as it has been called for decades (language I reproduced in my book, I'm sorry to say).
"Riot" diffuses responsibility (& stops insurance $$). This was an organized White attack. https://twitter.com/michele_norris/status/1271151759042510848?s=20
The violence of the Tulsa Massacre is captured really well in HBO's Watchmen. The White vigilante force worked with city officials. There were machine guns & airplanes. They left 35 square blocks a smoking ruin. All while claiming to enforce "Law & Order" https://twitter.com/watchmen/status/1273629776348155905?s=20
Here's a good book about it: https://www.oupress.com/books/15214751/tulsa-1921
Which brings us to today's DJT rally in Tulsa.
It's SO VERY Oklahoman.
One of the running gags of my book is how hysterically desperate OK has always been to make itself seem "important." It will pull almost any stunt, however wild, to try & leapfrog its civic competitors.
It's SO VERY Oklahoman.
One of the running gags of my book is how hysterically desperate OK has always been to make itself seem "important." It will pull almost any stunt, however wild, to try & leapfrog its civic competitors.
I mean, in 1964, OKC *volunteered* to have the government systematically test sonic booms on its citizens— 8x a day for 6 months.
They thought it'd give them a leg up in the race for a supersonic airport.
(The citizens were miserable & the US supersonic program got canceled.)
They thought it'd give them a leg up in the race for a supersonic airport.
(The citizens were miserable & the US supersonic program got canceled.)
So this DJT rally is quintessential Oklahoma.
A chance at national attention? In an environment when other states are saying "absolutely no way in hell"???
ROLL THE DICE.
These dice are loaded, covered in coronavirus & historical blood, & the stakes are actual citizens' lives.
A chance at national attention? In an environment when other states are saying "absolutely no way in hell"???
ROLL THE DICE.
These dice are loaded, covered in coronavirus & historical blood, & the stakes are actual citizens' lives.
Doing this in Tulsa right now is so obviously a provocation that — even if it was planned in ignorance — responsible leaders would have listened to their citizens & re-thought it. ("The Oklahoma Standard.")
Not just moved the rally to the following day. https://twitter.com/mynameisJabee/status/1270936937034113025?s=20
Not just moved the rally to the following day. https://twitter.com/mynameisJabee/status/1270936937034113025?s=20
I mean, this is exactly the kind of Law & Order strongman language that would have been used in 1921 Tulsa, or in 1930s OKC against Black citizens trying to move out of overcrowded neighborhoods, or in 1958 OKC against Clara Luper's sit-ins, or or or ......
Sometimes White people (w very skeptical 'I'm just asking questions!' faces) demand modern examples of White supremacy.
This is White supremacy.
Call it whatever else you want: trolling, insult comedy, ignorance, narcissism. Sure. It's first of all White supremacy.
This is White supremacy.
Call it whatever else you want: trolling, insult comedy, ignorance, narcissism. Sure. It's first of all White supremacy.
I'm going to stop now, but I have to say that I keep thinking about Timothy McVeigh, the terrorist who blew up OKC's federal building in 1995, killing 168 people.
The Memorial marking that spot is one of the most powerful places I've ever been. https://memorialmuseum.com/
The Memorial marking that spot is one of the most powerful places I've ever been. https://memorialmuseum.com/
McVeigh was an anti-gov White supremacist, a 2nd Amend obsessive, a conspiracy theorist, an "incel." He sold stickers at rallies. He saw his bombing as an act of patriotism meant to spark a new Civil War. McVeigh would have been very comfortable in the US political world of today
