If you don’t understand Oklahoma, you can’t understand America

A Black man like me is not supposed to love Oklahoma. But in studying my home state's history of violence, theft and wild ambitions, I learned to reckon with its legacy

In a moment, I will tell you how I learned to love Oklahoma, a state I have had to point out on a map more times than I can count to Americans and foreigners alike. One with 77 crimson red counties and a license plate that once simply read: OKLAHOMA IS OK."

But first, it is important to tell you about my first Oklahoma school history lesson - one I learned when I was eight years old, after my parents moved our family cross-country.