Summary via TLDRThis:
Oklahoma's Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters denied on Thursday that race was the main reason behind the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 that saw up to 300 people killed and left thousands of Black residents displaced.
Tulsa was known at the time for its thriving African American community in the Greenwood District where Black professionals ran multiple businesses.
During the event, one attendee then asked Walters, who reportedly supports banning certain books from school, about whether the Tulsa Race Massacre falls under his definition of critical race theory (CRT), which denotes that systemic racism is part of American institutions such as the criminal justice system and the education system.
Walters, who was endorsed by GOP Senator Ted Cruz, also served as the Oklahoma Secretary of Education between September 2020 and April 2023.
He said he doesn't want anyone to feel bad for what occurred because of their skin color, but what he's really saying is he doesn't want the children of Oklahoma to have humanity."
It sounds like the issue is fairly simple: He doesn’t have the slightest idea what the Tulsa Massacre was, and he likes it that way.
This is also his stance on the Civil War. And Jim Crow. And Apartheid.
The important bit is that he doesn’t want Oklahoma children to know anything about the Tulsa Massacre either.
There are some signs that even some other Oklahoma Republican politicians are getting sick of his crap, but Walters was elected so the governor can’t just fire him (not that he would… he’s another piece of work himself).