BEHIND THE RED CURTIAN:
LIVING IN THE LAND OF THE FISH PEOPLE
For a couple of years now I've had it in mind to start a serial photo-essay about living in Tulsa, my home since November 1996, about living in Oklahoma, my native ground (born and raised here), but also more specifically about being a blue living in the one of reddest of red states, about being an atheist living in the land of the fish people. What are fish people? Fish people are Christians or Christianists who self identify themselves by, among other things, slapping a stylized fish (said to based on the early Christian Ichthys sigil) on the rear end of their cars, which are often as not great honking SUVs.
Mrs. Dr. Omed is the one who came up with this nickname, as far as I know, and it has become a private term of reference that I am now taking public. Ever since I first got a digital camera I have been taking pictures documenting the omnipresent fishiness of bible-belting Tulsans, and I now have quite a collection of images. Some I have posted on the blog, in the tour of ORU Prayer Tower, and in the intermittent series, Church Sign Round Up, and so on. But the innocent little fish that swim on the expressways from suburb to mall to school to work to church in the ebb and flow of the tides of traffic are the unacknowledged barracudas of Christianist Sharia in Tulsa, and they deserve their own feature here at the Tent Show. Next slide.
In Tulsa, the Fish People have their own phone book. Using this exclusively Christian Yellow Pages, the concerned Fish Person can let his or her fingers do the walking to the Sign of the Fish, and thus avoid doing business with the godless and the damned. Many businesses in Tulsa put the Fish on their signage and other advertising:
Speaking of business, at almost any workplace in Tulsa, Fish People feel perfectly comfortable asking you where you go to church, on the unconscious assumption that everyone, everyone nice, goes to church. Admitting that you don't go to church is not an acceptable alternative, and many people who never go to church have a church to go to in conversation with Fish People. Try telling your in-office inquisitor flat out that you don't go to church, that you are an atheist, and that you think that God is a dangerous and stupid idea, and you can pretty much forget about any prospect of advancement at that particular firm. Even if you stop at "I don't go to church," it's a mark against you. Dr. Omed is one of the fools who does tell the truth when asked such questions, and my work career bears the scars of my candor.
USA Today did an article appropriately enough on my birthday in '02, Charting the Unchurched in America. In a state by state breakdown of the percentage of people who claimed a particular religious identity, in Oklahoma, 14 percent said they had no religion. Only the Baptists had a higher percentage at 30 percent. 7 percent were Catholic, 11 percent Methodist, 4 percent Pentecostal, 1 percent identified themselves as Evangelical, and so on. So, pilgrims and seekers, why is it that the Fish People set the tone for the society at large and dominate local politics in my town? Dr. Omed is tempted to say that is because most of the unchurched hereabouts are cowards, but that would be unkind. Most who silently dissent from the Fish People Weltenschaung do so on the go along get along principle; a few white lies, a little self suppression to escape scrutiny is worth it, in order not to put oneself, one's family, and one's private life at risk. But keeping one's comforts, and feeling free among friends is not the same as securing one's inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and these are what are now at risk, behind the Red Curtain, in the Land of the Fish People.
BILLBOARD AT "GUTS" CHURCH, FRONTAGE ROAD, BROKEN ARROW EXPRESSWAY, TULSA
TO BE CONTINUED.
4:12:12 AM 
|
|
