Oklahoma has the second-highest rate of interracial marriage in the country

[CaptDave]

Ok - that makes more sense as to why there was the amount of controversy surrounding it.

[ThomPaine]

Might it have a bit to do with the number of people with Native American ethnicity in the state?

Yes.

Between 2008 and 2010, 26.3 percent of all newly married couples “married out” of their race/ethnicity group, according to the Pew study. Of that, 5.6 percent were between white and Hispanic Oklahomans, 1.6 percent between white and Asian, 2 percent between white and black, and 17.1 percent were “other mixed,” a category that included Native Americans.

[adaniel]

I think you are referring to the Cherokee Freedman controversy.

Slave descendants seek equal rights from Cherokee Nation - Salon.com

A quick primer: the Cherokee Nation possessed slaves and they were forced to take the Trail of Tears. When the Civil War erupted, the Cherokees aligned themselves with the CSA, largely due to the slavery issue. The confederacy was defeated, and the Cherokees had to agree to let former slaves (freedmen) into their tribe in order to be admitted back into the Union. In 2007, the Cherokees voted to strip the freedman of their citizenship, which was in direct violation of the treaty they signed, thus causing them to lose millions in federal funds. It should be noted a lot of freedman do have indian ancestry.

Lots of layers to this story...way more than what can be said here. If you have time, the Salon/This Land article is a good, if rather lengthy read.

[CaptDave]

^ OK - this is making more sense. I honestly never paid too much attention beyond halfway listening to an occasional news report. Thanks for the info and link.

[adaniel]

^
No problem!

Back to the subject at hand. I am black and I have not had any issue dating outside my race here. Its really not a big deal in OKC. My longest relationships have been with a Vietnamese and Puerto Rican girl, if that tells you anything. I find it interesting our interracial marriage rate is in line with a lot of the West, despite being considered for these purposes a southern state. When people say OK is not really southern they are referring to nuances like these. Knowing my experiences down there, I think a lot of the south still has an issue with interracial dating, even among my generation.

[Plutonic Panda]

^ OK - this is making more sense. I honestly never paid too much attention beyond halfway listening to an occasional news report. Thanks for the info and link.

Yeah sorry about that, CaptDave. I knew about as much as you did on this.

[CaptDave]

Yeah sorry about that, CaptDave. I knew about as much as you did on this.

No worries. I learned about something I really did not understand fully. Not a bad thing in my view.

[okcboomer]

Yes.

Shocker.

[stick47]

I won't go into the slant the Salon put on the story but they're no un-bias source.

Cherokee freedmen controversy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Cherokee Freedmen Controversy is an ongoing political and tribal dispute between the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen regarding tribal citizenship. During the American Civil War, the Cherokee who supported the Union abolished the practice of African slavery by act of the Cherokee National Council in 1863. The Cherokee Freedmen became citizens of the Cherokee Nation in accordance with a treaty made with the United States government a year after the Civil War ended. In the early 1980s, the Cherokee Nation administration amended citizenship rules to require direct descent from an ancestor listed as "Cherokee By Blood" on the Dawes Rolls. The change stripped descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen of citizenship and voting rights unless they satisfied this new criterion. About 25,000 Freedmen were excluded from the tribe.
On March 7, 2006, the Cherokee Supreme Court ruled that the descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen were unconstitutionally kept from enrolling as citizens and were allowed to enroll in the Cherokee Nation. Chad "Corntassel" Smith, then-Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, called for an emergency election to amend the constitution in response to the ruling.[1] After a petition was circulated, a special election held on March 3, 2007 resulted in a constitutional amendment that disenrolled the Cherokee Freedmen descendants. This led to several legal proceedings in United States and Cherokee Nation courts in which the Freedmen descendants continued to press for their treaty rights and recognition as Cherokee Nation members.[2] The 2007 constitutional amendment was voided in Cherokee Nation district court on January 14, 2011, but was overturned by a 4-1 ruling in Cherokee Nation Supreme Court on August 22, 2011 before the special run-off election for Principal Chief. The ruling excluded the Cherokee Freedmen descendants from voting in the special election.
After the freezing of $33 million in funds by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a letter from the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in response to the ruling, an agreement in federal court between the Cherokee Nation, the Freedmen descendants and the US government allowed the Freedmen to vote in the special election. Bill John Baker was elected Principal Chief in the special election and inaugurated in October 2011. The Cherokee Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of the election results by former chief Chad Smith.
Both sides filed complaints in federal court in Tulsa, Oklahoma by July 2012; the Cherokee say the 1866 treaty does not require them to give full citizenship to the Freedmen, who continue to seek full rights.