‘Slap in The Face to Black Oklahomans’: Trump’s Tulsa Rally Announcement Sparks Blowback
June 12, 2020
Since Donald Trump announced he would resume in-person campaign rallies beginning with an event in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Juneteenth, Democrats and community leaders have been slamming his tone-deaf decision. See for yourself:
The Oklahoman: Oklahoma Democratic Party chair: Trump visit on Juneteenth a deliberate insult. “‘It feels like an insult, like a deliberate insult at worst and insensitive, unthinking and calculated at best,’ said Alicia Andrews. Andrews, of Tulsa, said people she had spoken with are incensed that Trump plans to visit the city on June 19, a holiday also known as Juneteenth to celebrate the end of slavery.”
Fox 25: ‘Slap in the face to Black Oklahomans’: OK Democratic party denounces Trump rally. “‘He is coming here on the 99th anniversary of one of the very worst racist massacres ever on American soil. This horrifying collaboration between Trump and Governor Kevin Stitt is evidence that to them at least, Black lives do not matter. The Oklahoma Democratic Party stands with all people of goodwill to denounce this self-serving morale-booster for Trump,’ concluded Andrews.”
Newsweek: Donald Trump’s Tulsa Rally on Juneteenth Is a ‘Calculated’ Insult, Oklahoma Democratic Party Chair Says. “The Oklahoma Democratic Party chairwoman said President Donald Trump’s plans to hold a rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth were a ‘calculated’ insult to the community. Alicia Andrews also told supporters on Thursday that the commander-in-chief’s choice to rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 19, a day when the U.S. celebrates the end of slavery, was ‘loathsome’ and insensitive to the community. She added that the move was particularly ‘sad’ given that the city was struck by one of worst instances of racial violence in American history in June 1921.”
Associated Press: Trump rally on Juneteenth in Tulsa called ‘slap in the face’. “‘To choose the date, to come to Tulsa, is totally disrespectful and a slap in the face to even happen,’ said Sherry Gamble Smith, president of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce, an organization named after the prosperous black community that white Oklahomans burned down in the 1921 attack.”
USA Today: Trump stirs anger with plans for Juneteenth rally in Tulsa, site of huge massacre of African Americans. “Alicia Andrews, chair of the Oklahoma Democratic Party, said Trump was ‘thumbing his nose at the real issue of racial inequity.’ ‘There’s a man’s words, and then there are his actions,’ she said. ‘Him coming here on that date, without making any outreach to the community, and saying it’s for unity, it is a slap in the face.’”
The New York Times’s Michelle Goldberg: Trump’s grotesque Tulsa trip. “As soon as the rally was announced, people started asking a question that Trump often forces: Was the president being stupid or evil?”