Oklahoma is Black

Oklahoma is Black was born out of an exhibition by visual artist, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, that shares the same name. Tatyana is an Oklahoma City native best known for her Stop Telling Women to Smile series. Not only had I never been to Oklahoma City before this project, but my knowledge about the city was extremely limited. As someone new to this community, I felt that my only responsibility was to listen and this film is born out of that listening. It is a meditation on the resilience of a community and the places in which it thrives, of its complexities and its nuances, and of its concern of what has passed and for what's to come.

I'd like to share a passage that Tatyana opened her exhibition with:

Sometimes, someone will ask, “There are black people in Oklahoma?” when I tell them where I’m from. Are there black people in Oklahoma? As if Greenwood wasn’t burned to the ground for being too black. As if our mothers and their mothers and didn’t toil this flat ground. And because white supremacy will have you believing that only white people deserve to be seen and recognized and celebrated, they don’t know that black people settled this place. And because they haven’t had a burger from Geronimo’s, or chicken from Bobo’s, “Are there black people in Oklahoma?” As if we don’t swim in lakes, and ride horses, and catch lightning bugs in glass jars. As if there were no Ada Lois Sipuel or Ralph Ellison or Clara Luper. As if this state wasn’t almost a black state. As if we don’t laugh out loud at dinner tables and hold our babies tight. As if we didn’t fall in love in the backseat of cars parked at the strip on 23rd. Running outside, no shoes on, with our play cousins. Twirling and dipping. Dodging police and thunderstorms (but not tornadoes because tornadoes don’t hit the east side). Singing and praising. In kitchens that smell like greens and pressed hair. 'Hold your ear so I don't burn it.' In board rooms, court rooms, class rooms, and pulpits. As if we weren’t singing at the top of our lungs on our way to school, on our way to Tinsel Town, on our way to the rest of our lives. As if we weren’t here sooner than Sooners. As if we disappeared. As if their attempts to kill us off were successful. As if we didn’t survive, aren’t surviving, their violence. Everyday.