John Thompson is a retired teacher and historian in Oklahoma who follows the goings-on in his state closely. I wish there were someone like him in every state: wise, experienced, intelligent, articulate.

What was Oklahoma Secretary of Education Ryan Walters thinking when, this weekend, he posted on Twitter a photo of a White, blond, young woman washing her hands in a bathroom with two Black, young women in the mirror next to her? To see the photo, click here.

Walters added the message, “I will always fight for students,” and “Student Safety over liberal agenda.” But, why would Walters see the photo as a real-life portrait of Blacks threatening Whites?

Since I’m not familiar with the insides of female students’ bathrooms, I checked out the 1.3k replies to the post. One responder found the same three young women in another photo that indicates it didn’t capture a real-life interaction. Another apparently found the source of the photo, a Linkedin post by Femly, entitled Period Equity Laws: Here’s why organizations should go above and beyond to ensure their period care offering is equitable! So, it appears to me that Femly’s message is about combating the stigma and shame that surrounds menstruation, even though Ryan’s use of the photo obviously sent the opposite message in terms of race.

One response on Twitter asked why Walters would choose “a period equity ad and then present it in such as a way that it looks pro-segregation?” But another had a different answer, noting that one of the Black students “clearly has books in that backpack. I’ll bet they’re books that promote CRT—books about the Tulsa Massacre or the Trail of Tears.”

Seriously, these tweets all add support for the editorial, It’s Time for Ryan Walters to End Disparaging Rhetoric or Resign, by the Oklahoman’s managing editor for diversity, community engagement & opinion, Clytie Bunyan. Bunyan wrote the “tweet was the latest of Walters’ blatant and unapologetic insults on Oklahoma.” She also provided context:

When you’re looking at curricula and allowing European history but surgically removing Black history, that’s racism. When Walters poses for a Christmas photo with his family with a white Santa and declares “No Woke Santa this year” at a time when stories about the popularity of a Black Santa and representation from a Native American Santa are published and aired in local media, that’s racism.

Bunyan correctly noted that Walters has:

Problems with messaging. His incessant video tweets are filled with offensive racist implications. He apparently believes we, the people of Oklahoma, have given him the authority to be unabashedly racist in his dog-whistling pronouncements.

Buynan notes that the “confusing tweet” … “leaves no positive benchmark, only angst, tension and more poison spreading through Oklahoma.” So, if he can’t do more than spread discord, he should “resign.”

As was demonstrated in the previous week, Walters is not alone spewing hatred and racism. So, I wonder what was on the minds of the Republican House members who censured and removed Rep. Mauree Turner from her committees. What did they think was in the head of the nation’s first, non-binary, Black Muslim, when she spoke with Capitol law enforcement agents before giving them access to her office and a trans-gender demonstrator? As Politico explained, “the spouse of a protester who threw water on a state lawmaker sought shelter in their office.”

Politico also recounted the abuse and death threats Turner has received, and it added an Editor’s note:

Turner read aloud from an email sent to their inbox. The sender hurled racist, transphobic, homophobic and Islamophobic insults at Turner and said they should be shunned from society because they were a burden. POLITICO has chosen not to print the insults so as not to elevate hateful rhetoric.

So, what did Turner have in mind when speaking with the police? Rep. Turner has witnessed the stress created by 40 anti-trans and/or anti-LGBTQ bills that have been filed this session. The protest was against “HB 2177, a bill that would outlaw gender-affirming health care for transgender minors.” And clearly, Turner and her supporters were being treated differently than the two legislators who are being prosecuted for felonies.

And, I wonder what the Republican leadership was thinking when they failed to talk with Turner before filing the censure without warning. And I wonder what Republicans who were quietly embarrassed by it were feeling when they stripped Turner’s and her district’s representation in committees.

Of course, there are questions about what plenty of Oklahoma MAGA’s had in mind when they’ve made extreme statements. For instance, what did Gov. Stitt mean when he claimed “every square inch” of Oklahoma for Jesus? And what was Sen. Shane Jett thinking when attacking Social and Emotional Learning as a leftist plot to “psychologically manipulate children and surveil Oklahoma families under the guise of addressing trauma.”

Then, what was in the minds of Republicans who voted down a bipartisan bill, HB 1028 which “would prohibit schools from administering corporal punishment to “any student identified with disability in accordance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.”

As the Washington Post reported, “Oklahoma state Rep. John Talley thought his bill to bar schools from spanking children with disabilities would find little to no opposition at the state’s legislature.” After all, he “had a call with a U.S. Marshal who told me his autistic daughter got spanked three times in a day for not doing her math correctly — there’s a point when you have to step up and say ‘this is just wrong.’”

But, “what seemed like a rare bipartisan moment quickly came crashing down as other Republican lawmakers invoked the Bible to argue against Talley’s House Bill 1028, claiming in some instances that ‘God’s word is higher than all the so-called experts,’ as Rep. Jim Olsen posited during the proposed legislation’s debate.” The Tulsa World’s Randy Krehbiel reported that Olsen further explained, “Somebody mentioned that American (Academy of) Pediatrics thinks (spanking) is a bad idea.” Then, “After reading Bible verses he said prove that God condones corporal punishment. ‘I disagree. And I have a higher authority.’”

In other words, every week since the Oklahoma legislature convened, rightwing extremists have continually hurled one cruel and irrational assault after another at our democracy. It seems like more Republicans are disturbed by this MAGA craziness. A few have spoken out against a few of the behaviors that they see as wrong. So, I wonder what is in the minds of Republicans who are being pressured to vote for such a brutal agenda. I wonder when they will reach a point when you have to step up and say “this is just wrong.”

John Thompson added as a postscript:

“Several people were a little nervous about voting for it because they thought they were voting against the Bible,” said [John] Talley, R-Stillwater,” and he’s working to get those Republicans to reconsider their votes.

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/politics/government/2023/03/16/jim-olsen-oklahoma-spare-the-rod-corporal-punishment-disabled-students/70016228007/