Tulsa: Ground Zero aftermath

June 2020 has arrived and forget the fact we have a local Primary Election on the month’s last day. Unrelated events and their fallout have been coming at us fast and furious. Chief among these has been a surge in Covid-19 cases as the state and city “re-opens” and mitigation strategy has been weakly encouraged if at all let alone enforced. Indeed, this is what has been driving decision-making with regard to attending public functions, well, at least decisions made by those of us who have made public and personal safety our highest priority.

See the Tulsa Health Department’s graph of daily cases and deaths for better understanding of the full scope of the threat.

The sustained national protests in response to the death of George Floyd (among others) at the hands of law enforcement certainly did not pass this town by. In fact it happened to coincide with the ninety-ninth anniversary of what was one of the ugliest episodes in the history of the Republic, the Tulsa Race Massacre. Tulsa was not spared violence and looting. When the first peaceful protest erupted into violence in the Brookside district, the Tulsa Police Department intervened using peppershot and apparent CS gas. Although it was determined the instigators of the vandalism and looting that occurred were NOT associated with the peaceful protest taking place, TPD came under intense criticism from several parties for use of violent tactics against non-violent protesters. As in other places, the “Defund the Police” movement gained some traction. Watching this all happen from the sideline, I have to give credit where credit is due to Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin. He was a prevailing voice of reason seeking to preserve the 1st Amendment rights of all along with order and protection against mayhem, all in a storm still building. For the record, the correct answer is not to defund the police but to defund militarization of the police, but that is material for subject unto itself.

Many in the community were still smarting from all this when the incumbent President announced he would be holding his reelection kickoff rally at our Bank of Oklahoma Center. To add insult to injury, it was announced it would be held on a commemoration date which is sacrosanct in not only the local African American community, but most others as well, June 19th known as Juneteenth. After ample advisement, said rally was moved to the following day, June 20th. All the same, the residents in the Greenwood District made sure the President would be able to see them from the air.

From the time the BOK rally was announced all through last week, local residents and business owners were preparing for the worst. The mere threat of the violence that certain high profile individuals stoked and even encouraged was enough for some businesses to close shop and take preemptive measures to limit property damage.

All this proved to be overkill as all demonstrations on Saturday, June 20th, a few instances aside, were overall peaceful happenings. The tolerance displayed by all was truly encouraging.

As the above photos reveal, one group was notably employing mitigation via use of masks and social distancing and the other not so much. This brings us back to where we were before all the social upheaval, our common confrontation with a potentially lethal contagion. At a time when Covid-19 cases are trending up sharply, it was consensus among all public health officials that laxing mitigation and allowing such a function to take place was a bad idea. Think back to March 2020 and Louisiana after Mardi Gras.

This prompts some reasonable questions of the incumbent President and his campaign as to why they would choose Oklahoma, a non-swing state in which he carried 77 of 77 counties in 2016 and will likely do so again. To hazard his local supporters at a time when Covid cases are only increasing sends a powerful message. Certain celebrities have articulated it well:

As was noted above, social distancing and wearing of masks, although they were issued to rally attendees, was not made mandatory. The one silver lining to this story is that the crowd was much smaller than anticipated, a whopping 6200 according to Tulsa Fire Department officials. Even still, before the backdrop of the Covid case spike, a biological warfare-type insult like this can put us locals in some deep stuff after the virus has time to incubate in its newly acquired hosts. Even though the President’s rally had the political big splash effect on a par with something like this:

We who have been following the Covid pandemic here in Tulsa have a very legitimate fear that his actions may have a latent and lingering effect on public health of something more like this:

Indeed, six of the President’s staff members at the BOK rally have since tested positive for Covid-19. Going forward, it has made the risk/benefit of such events a sobering decision for those in charge. The success or failure of their management of this public health disaster will be judged in the number of new cases and deaths resulting from them. For anyone following with us, nationally we will go over 120,000 deaths from Covid this week. That said, I am dreading the month of July in Oklahoma and not just because of the unrelenting heat!

In the meantime, don’t forget we have a primary election June 30th! Here’s to a more perfect union.