We’d like to give a big TLO attagirl to Kirby Mackenzie!
She’s a pretty, affable librarian at Ellen Ochoa Elementary in the Tulsa Union School District who, by appearances, makes reading very enjoyable and fun. Back in 2014, she made the news when Ellen gave her and her students a bunch of money for books and stuff.
Since then, Kirby’s been hard at work, dedicating her life to children and students, going to Taylor Swift concerts, and sharing a whole bunch of videos on TikTok.
A few days ago, she shared one that lampooned Ryan Langston-Walter's unique ability to ignore the real problems and issues facing teachers and students in Oklahoma, and instead focus all his attention and energy on tackling today’s manufactured right-wing culture war issues, like CRT, Woke Indoctrination, and Kids Pooping In Kitty Litter.
Check it out:
I’ll be the first to admit that a bunch of stuff on TikTok goes under my head, but that’s not too bad. She’s basically doing a satirical bit, and mockingly embracing the “woke indoctrinator” label that Ryan has attached to all teachers and public school librarians. This was made obvious by her caption that her "liberal agenda" is teaching kids to "love books and be kind."
Even though Kirby was obviously being sardonic, the right-wing troll mafia got ahold of the video and put it through their propaganda mill.
Libs of TikTok took the video, added Kirby’s personal info to it, and then shared it on social media without any context, attempting to pass it off as a real-life example of a teacher vowing to indoctrinate students in, gasp!, wokeness.
As he usually does, Ryan then rode their coattails and shared the video with his own comical message:
Listen. Just like we have people like Ryan Walters trying to indoctrinate our youth with religion and “patriotic” history, I would agree there is a sub-set of educators who – whether intentional or not – try to indoctrinate students with “woke” concepts like valuing diversity, kindness and, uh, literacy.
I guess the difference between me and Ryan is I don’t think that’s an issue that should cause any alarm, and he should be more focused on hiring new teachers, improving test scores, and making sure public schools get access to federal grant funding.
Then again, I’m not being investigated by the FBI, so what do I know?
Naturally, Ryan’s tweet hit all the standard alarm and outrage buttons. Most people on the left rightfully criticized him for being a pandering idiot, while people on the right voiced their support or simply called in bomb threats to Kirby's home, or the elementary school where she works.
Yep. Thanks to right-wing rhetoric being spread around by the State School Superintendent of Public Instruction, Oklahoma elementary schools are now receiving bomb threats. As our old pal Gaylon Culver always says, “Is This A Great State or What?”
In other news, I’d bet you a latte at Harbor Mountain Coffee Shop that the bomb threat was probably called in by a guy whose name rhymes with Latt Mangston.
Anyway, although her name is being dragged through the mud and she and her school have become targets for right-wing outrage, we’d like to thank Kirby for standing up to Ryan Walters' deranged lunacy and having some fun with it. I totally encourage her to run for State School Superintendent in 3 years. Maybe it will score her some free school supplies.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.