July 19th 2023.
Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters has been widely condemned for his statements at a forum on July 6. At the Norman, Oklahoma meeting, attendees questioned how teaching about the 1921 Tulsa Massacre did not violate his ban on critical race theory in schools. In response, Walters made a controversial statement.
“I would never tell a kid that because of your race, because of the color of your skin, or your gender or anything like that, you are less of a person or are inherently racist,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you don’t judge the actions of individuals. Oh, you can. Absolutely, historically, you should.”
Walters’ words were met with instant backlash, with Samuel Perry, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma, who was also in attendance, expressing his disdain.
“My wife and I attended this event tonight. This was just the tip of the iceberg of idiocy Walters spewed. Driving home we felt so angry and embarrassed we live in a state where people elected this ignorant and incompetent clown,” Perry tweeted.
Historians, however, refute Walters’ account of the Tulsa tragedy. Evidence suggests that the massacre was a racist retaliation against an alleged assault by 19-year-old Dick Rowland against white woman Sarah Page. The two-day-long killing spree, led by white supremacists, resulted in the destruction of “Black Wall Street” and the deaths of hundreds of Black Americans.
Walters’ presence on Thursday was met with a great deal of anger, as Oklahoma residents called him out for his extreme ideologies. This is not the first time he has received political ire for his right-wing stances since being appointed to this position in November 2022. Just a few weeks prior, he had called for Christianity and “Western heritage” in classrooms.
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