US VS. THEM
Written By: Whitney Mullica
This Monday the Oklahoma Transportation Commission met despite having a vacant seat for District 3, the area of the state most concerned with whether or not a new turnpike is necessary. Members of Pike Off OTA expected the OTC would unanimously vote to approve ACCESS routes, and were surprised when District Commissioner James L. Grimsley actually stood up to the other old white males sitting on the bench. (More on Grimsley’s speech will follow) Pike Off OTA is all too familiar with the rubber stamping processes of Oklahoma’s transportation authorities. “They” throw around millions of dollars of “our” money with blatant indifference, during times of day that most of “us” are required to be at work.
You can look back in Oklahoma history about a hundred years and find origins of “US” vs. “Them”. The first governor of the State of Oklahoma, Charles Haskell, was quick to fill his cabinet with members of the KKK, including Tulsa’s own Tate Brady and some Okies from Muskogee. Haskell, who among other things, worked for the railroad, had previously laid rail tracks in Ohio, where the people were not willing to give him right-of-way. To get around “those people” Haskell hired extra Irish workers and had them work as fast as possible, and even through the night, so that the next morning “those people” awoke to tracks that had already been laid. This type of maneuvering would later be useful for Haskell when he moved the capital of Oklahoma from Guthrie, to the tent city, Oklahoma City. Haskell and his buddies built the building we now protest on 23rd street, as well as three of the largest universities in our state.
The Klan controlled Oklahoma’s politics for much of the early 20th century. After being blamed for the Tulsa Race Massacre and many other atrocious acts of violence the Klan successfully impeached Governor Walton who had passed anti-mask laws, laws against public meetings, and laws against parades. Since Oklahoma receives such a whitewashed version of history in public education it’s no surprise that we are repeating it. Our legislators accept money from the state for highway construction projects and our politicians are bought and paid for by the industries that are getting rich off of our tax dollars. A hundred years ago the Klan was wise to have many of Oklahoma’s legislators in their very deep pockets. In the primary election leading up to his governorship, Walton beat the Klan’s favored candidate, R. H. Wilson, who was State Superintendent of Public Instruction and controlled the selection of textbooks.
In the early 1920s the Klan went around the state of Oklahoma on a “law enforcement campaign” gaining more followers, who would pay dues to be a member, and solidifying their benevolence. Inside of the legislature William McBee, a friend of the Klan, controlled the appointments of men who would create the fewest problems for the Klan. White men were not the only members of the Klan, there was a women’s branch as well, The Cherokee Women’s Klan. Early members of the KKK believed that membership was a good thing, the Klan had people convinced they would be the solution to the lawlessness of the present time.
After the Tulsa Race Massacre and with the changing attitudes of fundamentalist religious folks about people in other religions, the message of the Klan could not hold the same fascination as it had in the past. Membership dues began to deteriorate and once the money was no longer pumping into their coffers, many of the profiteers addicted to graft, replaced their fascination of the Klan with the growing economy’s need for good roads and highways. Like everyone else, the former Klan members wanted to share in the prosperity of Oklahoma’s expanding economy.
Watching the OTC meeting Monday, and the men making our state’s transportation decisions, felt dehumanizing. People like Jessica Brown and Gene McKown are probably nice outside of the Department Of Transportation building, but inside the DOT walls they are Supremacists. They don’t seem to see the people, the protesters, or the damage that their decisions are inflicting on our environment, our ecosystems, or our budgets. This all started, for many of US, back in February, and our relationship with the state of Oklahoma will probably never be the same. But, that doesn’t mean we lose hope. Members of Pike Off OTA were surprised when one member of the OTC, James L. Grimsley, chose to be a Commission outcast, and voiced his disapproval of the wasteful ACCESS plan.
He said to the OTC board, “Dr. Cerato is a respected academic and she is also a licensed professional civil engineer so her opinions carry a lot of weight and she would be recognized in a court of law as a very credible expert witness. So a lot of what she said resonated with me. I did some of my own research. If you have ever heard me talk publicly, I’m not a big fan of building new highways. I think it destroys ecosystems and divides and destroys communities, I’m not a fan of that. I believe in Oklahoma we have historically had an aversion to traffic engineering. And that is something that Dr. Cerato and I agree on. This weekend I looked up some stats, in terms of raw numbers of miles of highway, we rank number 14 in the nation. In terms of population we rank number 28. We have a lot of highways. What we don’t have is traffic engineering. I think we need to a spend a whole lot more time looking at interchange problems. We had the graph last month exploring the interchanges, I think there’s more than enough opportunity to fix those interchanges. And also just thinking more holistically about traffic engineering. Her opinions and comments resonate with me very much because it matches my own observations. I don’t think it's a tenable future where we continue to build highways with no limitations because we're running into 50 to 60 million dollars a mile. That’s not sustainable. And then we have to turn around and maintain those. But, the most important thing is, as a member of this commission we represent the public, we do not represent ODOT. We are supposed to be here to protect the interests of the public. One of the strong values I brought here with me is property rights. I believe in the sanctity of property rights. Something like eminent domain should be exceedingly difficult for the government, it's not something we should speed up, we should put a lot of restraints on that and tap on the brakes a lot. So this resonates with me. This issue has weighed more on me than any issue since I’ve been on this commission. I don’t like the position I’m in right now but I’m not going to abandon my own personal views and the principles that are important to carry on this commission.”
While the outlook for many Norman residents trying to save their community may appear grim, please do not give up hope. It’s taken us nearly five months for one person to really hear us and show compassion. It will take time, persistence, resilience, and teamwork to get the rest of them to hear us. Fortunately, Oklahoma’s power players are not the violent brutes they were in the past. We can’t give up on them.
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