OKLAHOMA CITY–Responding to mounting public pressure that the name of the nation’s 46th state is offensive to Native Americans, the Oklahoma Legislature has passed and Governor Brad Henry has signed into law legislation that will change the name of the state of Oklahoma effective November 16, 2007. The law, which was drafted by Oklahoma State Senator Polly K. Rekt (I-Bowlegs), calls for a blue-ribbon commission, selected by the Governor, to propose three new names for the state. Among the requirements for the new state names is a provision that all entries be gender and ethnically neutral. Rekt said,

We should be ashamed that our state website states: "The name ‘Oklahoma’ comes from the Choctaw words: ‘okla’ meaning people and ‘humma’ meaning red, so the state’s name literally means ‘red people.’" Just think of what harm that must do to our Native populations to have a state named after their color. Further, our state name is offensive to many other Natives because we selected Choctaw words. What about the Cherokees, or Osages, or Peorias? Are we saying their language is not as legitimate as the Choctaws’? This kind of hateful, stereotypical speech must stop, and this new law is the first step to healing the great racial divide that exists between most Native American Oklahomans and the rest of the white Euro-trash Oklahomans, er, I mean, citizens of the 46th state." 

Once the blue-ribbon committee has selected three choices for a new state name, there will be a special election held November 16, 2007, which is the 100th Anniversary of The-State-Formerly-Known-As-Oklahoma’s admission to the union. Early front-runners in the contest to rename the state will be forth-coming. The state name is not all that will change if Polly K. Rekt has her way.

I fully intend to sponsor another bill that would call for a re-designed state flag. Do you realize we have stolen the proud Indian symbols to use for our bourgeois aggrandizement? We should be ashamed. In fact, most nights I leave the Capitol crying for the wrongs my vanilla-white forefathers inflicted upon the Indian masses. I had one grandfather that single-handedly got a bunch of them drunked up on firewater and surrounded them late one night, and they named a whole county after him. I can barely hold my head up.

Opponents of the campaign to rename the state have been few and far between, as they have been unwilling to buck the current of public opinion and fearful of losing campaign contributions from the Casino-rich Native American tribes.

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This is, of course, nonsense I just made up, but I was inspired to write after hearing this today.