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Small thread about Oklahoma, which is in my heart today: it still (tho to a lesser extent than when I was there, I think) suffers from an inferiority complex.
Think about it: didn't become a state til 1907, known for Dust Bowl until Bud Wilkinson's Sooners in '50s, basically rep'd on any cartoon map by an oil derrick or wheat.
Our license plate slogan growing up was "Oklahoma is OK". Borrowed from the song, but still... not exactly busting with pride. We're the NJ to Texas' NY.
It's reliably red now and has a long history of embedded racism, toward Black people and American Indians, which are the largest minority group in the state.
But to judge it by where it is now, it can be argued, is to be ahistoric. Okla. had a Grand Wizard as a governor in the 20s, but also a Socialist. Its referendum process is being used to vote on expanding MCaid this summer.
Its teachers were among those in 2018 that walked off the job for higher pay. Its electoral history includes liberals like Mike Synar, but also moderates like Boren, McCurdy, Henry Bellmon.
It holds an annual music festival in Okemah, 18 miles from where I grew up and never realized, where Woody Guthrie was born.
It is a strange melange of Midwestern nice, Southwestern ruggedness and Southern putting on of airs (among other things). It is, like America, imperfect. Don't judge it by one day.
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