Intersections - Oklahoma

Episode 7

Veronica Laizure is a busy person these days.

With the recent inflammatory Republican presidential candidate remarks flying, Veronica finds herself battling Islamophobia and hate speech on a daily basis.

She is an attorney, and the Civil Rights Director for CAIR-OK, or, the Council on American Islamic Relations, Oklahoma Chapter.

That organization defines their mission this way:

To enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

While we may have heard her in sound bites at press conferences or on a panel, in this episode we get to hear her explain more fully about how CAIR works to build understanding in a time when others are actively working to sew misunderstanding about Islam.

We also visit about her own background and how that shaped her into a highly-skilled and deeply committed champion of all people in Oklahoma, not just a few.

The Tulsa native is a graduate of the OU College of Law and is a member of the Oklahoma Bar Association. She joined CAIR Oklahoma in 2014 as a staff attorney.

 

Photo by Sarah Hussain. Provided courtesy of Red Dirt Report.

Episode 6

Ryan Kiesel ran for, and won a seat in the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 2004 while he was still in law school. His life hasn’t slowed down since.

He completed law school, and went on to serve three terms in the Oklahoma Legislature.

He is now the Director of the American Civil Liberties Union – Oklahoma, an organization that is well-known in Oklahoma for championing causes that put the organization and Ryan, its public face, at odds with the prevailing conservative culture of Oklahoma.

In this episode we learn about his first run for office, life in the Oklahoma Legislature, and the politics of being a Democratic Party representative with a dominant Republican party in the state.

We talk about how hard it is for Democrats to develop an effective opposition party in a state where the middle of the political spectrum is far to the right.

Some have referred to him as a lightning rod in Oklahoma where the criticism flows freely almost every time the ACLU takes a position.

Ryan gives us a view of what it is to be the center of constant public attention which is many times negative, including some threats, as he speaks out for the rights of all people in Oklahoma, not just a privileged few.

Episode 5

Joe Dorman is best known as the candidate for governor in 2014 challenging the incumbent, Governor Mary Fallin.

Although many counted out his run as foolhardy against a Republican sitting governor in the reddest of states, he ran neck and neck in polling in the summer leading up to the election and made a strong showing in the election results.

In this episode we hear about Joe’s deep background in Oklahoma politics and how he served honorably in state government in some kind of way since his college days.

Listen as he talks about the intersections in his own life where he saw a decision that he needed to make and then made it.

Also, I ask if he is going to run again, and he answers.

Episode 4

Angela Clark Little is an unlikely, but high-profile education activist in Oklahoma.

She has started numerous Facebook groups for that cause. One of them, Oklahoma Parents and Educators for Public Education, has over 5,100 members now and is growing daily.

She strongly supported Joy Hofmeister in her successful bid to become the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state. The win was an upset because Hofmeister, a Republican, had knocked out the Republican incumbent Janet Barresi in the primary.

But Angela doesn’t fit the usual personal profile of what we might see in our minds when we hear the word “activist”.

She lives in the suburbs and is active in her church there. She is a devoted mother and can be seen more often than not with her elementary-age twin sons.

She is also a Data Management Analyst for Devon Energy and works in that company’s impressive tower, the tallest in downtown Oklahoma City.

In this interview Angela talks about the intersections where she decided that it was time that she did something not just for her sons, or children in her local community, but for the children of the state.

We will also hear from her sons, Boston and Cannon, who were with her the day of this interview.

Episode 3

Jonathan Dodson’s comments in this interview cover the many intersections that he has encountered in his adult life, many of them as he engaged in community development in Oklahoma City where he and his wife are raising a family.

But as he worked in the community first in the social care sphere, then in banking, and now as a developer and community activist, he has found that the usual assumptions often made about how to fix things need fixing, too.

Listen carefully to this conversation about how he thinks more people in Oklahoma City can be heard in a new “MAPS 4 Neighborhoods” that is being discussed in leadership circles.

It’s a major intersection for this city, and a major intersection for many economic classes and ethnic groups as well.

Episode 2

This interview reveals some of the deeper personal aspects of Cyndi Munson and her life that will help you understand how it came about that she won the recent special election for Oklahoma House District 85.

She first ran for the seat against a long-time incumbent Republican in 2014. She lost.

But, upon the incumbent’s sad and untimely death not long after the election, she ran again in a special election, beating a Washington-connected Republican insider in a Northwest Oklahoma City district where Republicans outnumber Democrats by a significant margin.