I am almost speechless. Almost.
I live in Oklahoma. I grew up in the house where I currently live and I attended local schools. I went to college in Oklahoma. I stayed in Oklahoma until 1990, when I became a single woman and moved to New Mexico. New Mexico is a free-thinking paradise and I reveled in the opportunity to quit shaving my legs and to wear linen all year around. Barring Albuquerque, we didn't see too much crazy. We did have the incident of a county commissioner's son driving the wrong way on a main street in Taos. The best part of the story was the fact that he was driving a county dump truck. Nepotism rocks! . We had the summer when the gas station owners raised gas to an all time high. All the hippies geared up and got that stopped at a city council meeting. There was some "monkey-wrenching" in Pilar, but I can't give you the details on that. What an innocent 10 years that was.
I moved back to Oklahoma in 2011.
Please follow me down the road of crazy to the Oklahoma Legislature.
There really isn't much to add to the craziness that is in the article. It comes from the Yahoo News site. All I can do is bang my head against a wall and weep. If this state gets any worse, I do not want to hear it. I don't want to see it and I don't want to talk about it.
The act of wearing a hoodie in public could soon be illegal in Oklahoma under a bill proposed by Don Barrington, a Republican state senator.
The bill, an amendment to existing law, would make it illegal for people to “intentionally conceal” their identities “in a public place by means of a robe, mask, or other disguise,” reports Oklahoma City NBC affiliate KFOR-TV.
Violators of the existing law (and the proposed amendment) face misdemeanor charges. If found guilty, they face fines of up to $500 and up to a year in prison.
The problem is that the immediately preceding paragraph in the existing law, titled 21 OS 1301, makes it illegal for anyone “to wear a mask, hood or covering, which conceals the identity of the wearer during the commission of a crime” or for “coercion, intimidation or harassment.”
Civil rights advocates worry that the two clauses read together could give police the authority to arrest someone for wearing a simple hooded sweatshirt.
I would never think to conceal my identify while committing a crime. I would walk in, introduce myself, produce identification and start "criming". Head beating begins.
“If somebody is out running, especially in this kind of weather, where it’s cold, drizzly, you might be inclined to wear your hoodie at Lake Hefner,” local attorney James Siderias told KFOR.
(Lake Hefner is a huge reservoir and major recreational destination in Oklahoma City.)
“I think this is a violation of an individual’s right to choose what they want to wear as long as it doesn’t violate the realm of public decency and moral values, and I think this could be very problematic,” the attorney added.
“I think they just overreached a little bit.”
Eduar Carreon, KFOR’s veritable hoodie wearer on the street, agrees.
“I’ve been wearing hoodies since I was a little kid,” Carreon reminisced.
My first hoodie was a gift when I was in my late 30s. It is a Larry Bird, Celtics NBA, hoodie and I am not giving it up now. It is in tatters but the hood still covers my head and it is my favorite color.
Barrington, the legislator who proposed the amendment, disagrees.
"The intent of Senate Bill 13 is to make businesses and public places safer by ensuring that people cannot conceal their identities for the purpose of crime or harassment,” he told the NBC station.
"Similar language has been in Oklahoma statutes for decades and numerous other states have similar laws in place,” Sen. Barrington proclaimed. “Oklahoma businesses want state leaders to be responsive to their safety concerns, and this is one way we can provide protection.”
The existing law includes a large number of exceptions for hood- and mask-wearers including “exhibitions of minstrel troupes,” attendees of “masquerade parties” and participants in “the pranks of children on Halloween.”
I can assure you that the legislature isn't one teensy bit concerned about the safety of the business. They are concerned about black people wearing hoodies. I don't understand their logic and I don't try.
Thank Goddess, I can still play pranks on children on Halloween. Dodged the bullet on that one.
Barrington’s amendment would add new exceptions including immunity for religious adherents “wearing coverings required by” their beliefs and for people dealing with bad weather.
The genesis for the original anti-mask law, passed about a century ago, was to foil the Ku Klux Klan, notes KFOR.