How Tulsa's Republican Mayor Found Himself at the Center of America's Debate on Race
By almost any measure, this has been a terrible month for Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum.
Like almost every other city in America, Tulsa was the scene of major protests after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked major protests. Demonstrators tried to take over an interstate highway and some even marched to Bynum’s house, an act he called “intimidation.” In a city that was the site of the nation’s most notorious massacre of black residents, hundreds of whom were murdered in their homes by a white mob, the mayor’s insinuation that he felt threatened by unarmed protesters didn’t sit well in the black community.
It only got worse. Bynum, a mild-mannered 43-year-old with tortoise-shell glasses, gave an interview on national television that downplayed the role of race in a widely publicized police shooting. No sooner had he apologized for his “dumb and overly simplistic” comment than one of his highest-ranking officers said that police should statistically be shooting more black people “based on the crimes committed.”
In the middle of all this, President Trump, whose provocative rhetoric after Floyd’s death inflamed tensions across the country, announced he would come to Tulsa to hold his first rally since the coronavirus pandemic had ended his public campaigning. Bynum, a moderate Republican, has stressed he had nothing to do with Trump’s visit, but he resisted repeated calls to cancel the rally at the 19,000-seat BOK Center in downtown. He did not respond to interview requests made to his office. In a public statement, he said that an event in the middle of a spike in Covid-19 cases “isn’t ideal.”
Now Tulsa, population just under 400,000, is preparing for the arrival of tens of thousands of Trump supporters and counter-protesters. High steel fencing lines streets through downtown, which Bynum placed under curfew starting Thursday night in fear that “organized groups who have been involved in destructive and violent behavior in other States are planning to travel to the City of Tulsa for purposes of causing unrest in and around the rally.” Trump torqued up the tension Friday morning with a tweet threat: “Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/19/tulsas-republican-mayor-found-himself-center-of-americas-debate-on-race-329953
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