I lived in OK from 9mos until I was 23.
It never occurred to me that it was in any way unusual that I had Indians in my classes, or that about half the guys in our group were Indians.
I never knew it was unusual that I drank and played pool at Indian bars, or that my best pool-shooting buddy was a full-blooded Kiowa Apache.
None of those people would have thought my use of “real Indians” was unusual. Pretty much means somebody who has enough Indian blood that he looks Indian, or can prove his Indian background with paperwork.
Contradiction in your definition as there are plenty of people with paperwork who you would look at and not be able to state their heritage simply by looks. That’s because of the rule I noted earlier on federal law allowing each tribe to determine who they will put on their rolls.
When I moved to OK in 1972, I lived in Osage County, home to the tribe of the same name. I had plenty of classmates/neighbors with clear Indian heritage by their appearance and/or their name. A 100% Osage was not unknown at that time but it is a lesser population now. Today, I live in the Tulsa area where primarily three traditional tribal areas come together: Osage, Cherokee, Muscogee-Creek. The Cherokee group is spread through NE OK with a fairly broad qualification standard for their rolls so quite a few people claim that heritage.