Maybe Oklahomans are Just Lazy: Letter to Representaive Sally Kern

I have decided to share with you what I felt necessary to tell State Representative Sally Kerns via email.  

Hello Representative Kern,

This email is in regards to your recent statements concerning the work ethic of minorities and women. 

    First, I when I first heard such a thing I really found it hard to believe.  However amongst the other racist things that are circulating within the Republican party these days I guess I should find much difficult to believe.  Before I took the time to write to you I wanted to be sure of a couple of things.  Particularly pertaining to economic statistics amonst minorities and women.  According to the Census.gov information provided, in 2009, women working Full time made $36,278 and their male counterparts made $47,127.  *That is 77% more earned income for male  individuals than for women who BOTH  work full time.  So it is not fair to say to these women in particular that they are not making the same money as men because they stay at home.  I know many more women who work 2 jobs to support their families than I have known who are stay at home moms.  Blacks in this country earned $32,584, between **62%-65% less than the national average and their white counterparts.

The median income for the state of Oklahoma was about $10,000 less than the National Median Income. So would you then conclude this is because, well, Oklahomans just don't work as hard as other states in the country? Oh no, God forbid right? I mean but we have both worked with Oklahomans right?

I am a woman and a minority. I worked 2-3 jobs including working in the Public School System for 3 years, in preparation for my Ph.D.  I have 3 college degrees -all from accredited Oklahoma Universities. Many of my friends are from Oklahoma and are minorities and women. Yet they are also Ph.D.'s, Lawyers, Medical Doctors, Chemists, Engineers, Certified Financial Analysts for fortune 500 firms, business owners and MBA's, and oh yes of course several are single mothers.  I know many raised in the projects and ghettos in Oklahoma who have attended top Universities and schools such as MIT and Marquette University, Spelman College, Morehouse.   So I shouldn't have to tell you how ignorant you sound.  Even on your website where you attempted to clean up your mess. 

The President of the United States is an African American and  He also graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School.  Yet you prefer to pertuate the stereotypes of old.  And have traded integrity and grace for politics. And I for one, as well as several others are not only offended, I am disgusted. 

As for your comments concerning your tenure as a teacher, after working in the school systems and seeing "Waiting for Superman", I am not going to accept that as a qualification for bigotry or ignorance or you electing to become the spokesperson for both.

Oh and by the way, yes the friends that I mentioned above, they are Christians too.  And we, Madam Representative are praying for you.  But more importantly that such ignorance shall be removed and that clarity and insight shall prosper.



*T reposted this as I had sent it to Rep. Kerns, but I actually mis-wrote the percent. I believe should read ratio. The percentages are ratios comparing the differences in income. 
**The effect is the same in propotion to the difference in Oklahoma's median income and that of the national median income.