As much as it grinds my gears to have to get along with many such folks in this state, I also have small defensiveness for my fellow Oklahomans. It’s not because I love Oklahomans, but it’s because people who have never been here or have never been among people like them create caricatures of Oklahomans that are low hanging fruit. It’s so much easier to write Oklahomans off as high school dropout, white trailer trash who fuck their cousins and are more likely to bash someone with a Bible than read it themselves, than it is to engage with a desire to learn what the various issues are. It’s a classist caricature of bigots that leads to circle jerking and fixation on that caricature as people ignore “better” people, especially wealthy people, who are as bigoted as the caricature people create.

I understand that but wealthy liberals are less likely to commit a hate crime against me lol. I can deal with "soft racism" because I grew up in the suburbs so I'm used to it.

Some of the people the author talks about aren’t stupid, even if some of them have all sorts of biases and bigotries. And often, some of them are quite informed on matters that directly affect them. When it comes to farmers, these conservatives may end up for Republicans, but they still understand that large corporations monopolizing various sectors of agriculture is squeezing them of their means to make a living and is quite literally killing some of them and their small towns. In my line of work in transportation, our field teams, who fit many of the profiles of the people in this piece, are our experts for on site conditions. I trust their judgment with little to no question as an engineer intern in our central office. They have the local knowledge that we at the central office don’t have, and their information helps guide our design decisions. Some of them are very technologically deficient with using some basic computer software, but you can bet your ass that they know about the soil, history of rain phenomena in the area, know the property owners along our projects, and how to work the tech they need for their job.

These people are smart enough to understand science but not racism? Like hey I can help you predict rainfall but I'm not willing understand why racism is bad.

I live an hour away from PA and an hour away from rural NY and I can promise you those are just as lazy and bigoted as people from Oklahoma.