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I love my family and I love my state (Oklahoma) but sometimes, I'm a little embarrassed to say I grew up there. Mostly when I see something ignorant or idiotic written on Facebook or somewhere else on the internet without any facts to back it up. Most of this time it's political statements or racist statements or sexist statements. I wrote something on Tumblr not too long ago about how not all southerners were rednecks... well, some of them do fine the profile.

I was sifting through the "Yay Osama is dead!" and "Praise the Lords" in my Facebook newsfeed the other day when I came across this:

Is it at all ironic that oSama is one letter off from oBama? I’m not slammin’ our pres. b/c I don’t believe that’s right and I pray for the guy to make Godly decisions. But I’m just sayin………coincidence?

It was written by a girl I went to high school with. We're the same age, but she's a stay-at-home mom with two kids, one of which is just a couple months old. I don't think she finished college but I'm not even sure if she went. I do know that she still lives in the little town where we're from and she's prone to make a lot of status messages with "God" in them.

None of these things should matter. But when you're from Oklahoma, they create the stereotype. Uneducated, lives in the country, barefoot and pregnant, conservative, overtly religious. They are the traits of the group where I'm from that ends up being the loudest voice. And they drown out all the reasonable, rational, educated folks. Like my parents. Who never take cheap shots at Obama, even though they don't like him. They may badmouth his corporate bailouts and healthcare reforms, but they do their research and know their stuff. They, for one, do not want to be labelled "hicks" or "rednecks" during a debate or discussion, so they make sure they can back up all their arguments.

Why can't the people like that be what Oklahoma is known for? Not the high teen pregnancy rate (still haven't learned that ONLY teaching abstinence doesn't work), or the high drop out rate, or the low test scores or the trailer parks? Or the white trash? Or the birthers? Or the Christian extremists?

Don't get me wrong, I am Oklahoman... but I'm not that kind of Oklahoman.