Ballerina statue cut down in Tulsa, sold for scrap metal

Mon, May 2, 2022

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A bronze statue depicting one of Oklahoma's most famous Native American ballerinas was cut from its base outside a Tulsa museum and sold for scrap to a recycling company, authorities said Monday.

Museum officials say the Five Moons statue of Marjorie Tallchief was likely removed Thursday from its plinth outside the Tulsa Historical Society, the Tulsa World reported.

Museum officials received a call Monday from CMC Recycling in southwest Rogers County to identify what was believed to be pieces of the bronze statue, the newspaper reported.

Michelle Place, director of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum, checked out the recovered pieces late Monday morning and verified that they came from the statue.

“The Tulsa Police Department is working diligently to apprehend the thief,” the historical society said in a statement.

Pieces of the statute, including the head and part of an arm, are still missing.

Place said the original mold for the statue burned in a foundry fire, so recreating the statute will be much more complicated.

“I am devastated by this,” she said.

The statues known as the Five Moons were created by Tulsa-area artists Monte England and Gary Henson. England worked on two of the pieces before his death in 2005, and Henson completed the project.

The other Five Moons statues of renowned American Indian ballerinas depict Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin and Maria Tallchief, Marjorie Tallchief's sister.

How my family's memory of the Tulsa massacre sheds new light on Jan. 6 Capitol riot


© Erin SchaffAnneliese M. Bruner

Pushing a preferred storyline to uphold a system that favors the powerful is at the heart of any effort to rewrite history. But creating false public narratives is the purview of authoritarians.

This a standard game, but many Americans are still just waking up to it. My great-grandmother Mary E. Jones Parrish understood this dynamic all too well. She was a trained journalist and teacher who moved to Tulsa around 1919 and was reading at home when the violence began on May 31, 1921. Her young daughter, my grandmother Florence Mary, called her to the window, saying: "I see men with guns."

In her newly republished book-length account of the Tulsa massacre of 1921, my great-grandmother reported on the horrific events that she and her daughter escaped. She admonished the nation to awake to the factors that feed state-sanctioned violence and provided a model for capturing and preserving the truth. She knew, as did the other survivors of the massacre: Our democracy depends on it. She wrote: "The rich man of power and the fat politician who have maneuvered to get into office, and even our Congress, may sit idly by with folded hands and say, 'What can we do?' Let me warn you that the time is fast approaching when you will want to do something and it will be too late."

The truth our democracy requires is fighting its way to the light. Earlier this month, "Mother" Viola Fletcher, 107, the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, testified before Congress about what she witnessed on May 31, as a mob of White Tulsans rampaged through her neighborhood killing Black people, looting and torching their homes and businesses. With a calm demeanor that belied the terror she recounted, she told the story of her family fleeing in the middle of the night to escape violence sweeping the Greenwood quarter: "The night of the massacre, I was awakened by my family -- my parents and five siblings were there -- I was told we had to leave and that was it ... I will never forget the violence of the White mob when we left our home. I still see Black men being shot. I still see Black bodies lying in the street."

Hearing the excruciating details of what she saw as a child of seven was not the only shock for viewers -- and it wasn't at all a shock to me. "For 70 years, the City of Tulsa and its Chamber of Commerce told us that the massacre didn't happen, like we didn't see it with our own eyes," she said, revealing the complicity of local government and businesses in covering up the crimes of 1921. City officials were not keen to acknowledge what happened because of how it would look to the outside world and imposed their self serving agenda of denialism on the victimized community, without regard for the people's suffering. Evidence that city fathers, along with the National Guard, bore some responsibility for the destruction provided another motive for official eagerness to suppress the truth.

A week before Mother Fletcher testified, another denial of truth was unfolding within the same halls of power. The House Oversight and Reform Committee held hearings on the Jan. 6 invasion of the US Capitol, during which Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde told his colleagues, "Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures. You know, if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the sixth, you'd actually think it was a normal tourist visit."

He and other like-minded lawmakers oppose the establishment of a commission to investigate the unprecedented attack, downplaying the gravity of an event that some have referred to as a failed coup d'etat. They are working feverishly to characterize the attack as relatively benign and to cast doubt on the legitimacy on any commission that is empaneled to investigate the crimes that took place in Washington, DC -- the city where I reside -- on Jan. 6.

Some others who lived through the attack on the Capitol see it differently. On Feb. 23, former US Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testified before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee: "The events on January 6, 2021, constituted the worst attack on law enforcement that I have seen in my entire career. This was an attack that we are learning was pre-planned and involved participants from a number of states who came well equipped, coordinated and prepared to carry out a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol. I witnessed insurgents beating police officers with fists, pipes, sticks, bats, metal barricades and flag poles. These criminals came prepared for war. They came with weapons, chemical munitions and explosives. They came with shields, ballistic protection and tactical gear. They came with their own radio system to coordinate the attack, as well as climbing gear and other equipment to defeat the Capitol's security features."

Another law enforcement officer, Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone has gained fame for his condemnation of attempts by some lawmakers to sanitize what happened that day. "It's been very difficult seeing elected officials and other officials kind of whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened," he told CNN's Don Lemon, adding, "I experienced a group of individuals that were trying to kill me to accomplish their goal."

In each of these scenarios, authority for bringing to light what happened and who was responsible rests, paradoxically, with stakeholders whose interests align with suppressing a factual accounting. In Tulsa, city fathers were more concerned with their image than in ensuring justice for the victims. And in Congress, what could be complicit factions among lawmakers are thwarting efforts to ensure transparency in government, a hallmark of a healthy democracy, to maintain power and escape possible criminal prosecution.

Their lust for power is matched by the bloodlust that Mary Parrish saw in the Tulsa mobs. She wrote: "This spirit of destruction, like that of mob violence when it is once kindled, has no measure or bounds."

In a conversation I had with renowned historian Scott Ellsworth, who has been studying and writing about the Tulsa Race Massacre since the 1970s, I recall him using that same word -- bloodlust -- to describe what eyewitnesses said the Tulsa attackers exhibited. That was the motivating force for the murderous mob to organize and resume the attack on Greenwood, deploying the machinery and methods of war. It's what we can see in the eyes of those who marched in Charlottesville, carrying torches and shouting "Jews will not replace us." It's what we can hear in the voices of those screaming as they slammed their bodies and weapons into the US Capitol.

Looking back on the events of 1921 and how we dissect and analyze what happened, it feels strange to think that people 100 years from today will evaluate the way we handled the political turmoil and violence in which we are currently embroiled. Will we demand truth and accountability, or will we accept a watered-down investigation that does not make people answer for potential crimes?

Mary Parrish's warning is clear that failing to hold those responsible for political violence will beget further violence and destruction, perhaps even of democracy itself. I hope that we pass muster.


© Trinity University Press

How my family's memory of the Tulsa massacre sheds new light on Jan. 6 Capitol riot

SOCIAL MEDIA USERS FAKE OUT TRUMP
TikTok users, K-pop fans credited with helping to sabotage Trump rally 
AND MANAGING TO KEEP IT SECRET
The prank proved successful, as Forbes reported attendance was just under 6,200.

NOT THE 400LB GUY ON A COMPUTER

IN HIS MOM'S BASEMENT AS TRUMP ONCE SAID

RATHER GEN Z ON THEIR SMARTPHONES

Reuters•June 21, 2020 By Elizabeth Culliford

(Reuters) - TikTok users and Korean pop music fans are being partly credited for inflating attendance expectations at a less-than-full arena at President Donald Trump's first political rally in months, held in Tulsa on Saturday.

Social media users on different platforms, including the popular video-sharing app TikTok, have claimed in posts and videos that they registered for free tickets to the rally as a prank, with no intention of going.

Prior to the event, Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale said there had been more than one million ticket requests for the event. However, the 19,000-seat BOK Center arena had many empty seats and Trump and Vice President Mike Pence canceled speeches to an expected "overflow" crowd.

The Trump campaign said that the entry was 'first-come-first-served' and that no one was issued an actual ticket.

"Leftists always fool themselves into thinking they're being clever. Registering for a rally only means you’ve RSVPed with a cell phone number," said Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh in a statement to Reuters. "But we thank them for their contact information."

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, responded to a tweet by Parscale blaming the media for discouraging attendees and cited bad behavior by demonstrators outside.

"Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID," she tweeted on Saturday. "KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too," she added.

"My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens," tweeted former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt.

CNN reported on Tuesday that a TikTok video posted by Mary Jo Laupp, a user who uses the hashtag #TikTokGrandma, was helping lead the charge. The video now has more than 700,000 likes.

There were some shouting matches and scuffles outside the event between around 30 Black Lives Matter demonstrators and some Trump supporters waiting to enter. A Reuters reporter saw no sign any Trump supporters were prevented from entering the arena or overflow area.

Trump had brushed aside criticism for his decision to hold the in Tulsa, the site of the country's bloodiest outbreaks of racist violence against Black Americans some 100 years ago.

TikTokers and K-Pop Stans Say They Trolled President Trump's Campaign Rally in Tulsa

They reserved seats for the event and didn't show up.

Jun 21, 2020

President Trump's first campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic had far less of a turnout than expected, and a group of TikTok teens and K-Pop stans may have been responsible for the shrunken crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Last week, POTUS bragged on Twitter that nearly one million people requested tickets for Saturday night's rally, but that the arena could only hold 19,000 fans, which lead many to believe the event would be at capacity. However, it appears hundreds of thousands of those RSVP requests were made by TikTokers and fans of Korean pop music who had no intention of showing up, according to The New York Times.



In the days leading up the event, TikTok users made videos encouraging their followers to reserve seats and not attend in an effort to inflate expectations.

"Guys, Donald Trump is having a rally next week and it's free. All you have to do is give your phone number and you can get two tickets, so I got two tickets. But I totally forgot that I have to pick every individual piece of lint off of my room floor and sort them by size, so I can't make it," one TikToker sarcastically said in a clip prior to the rally.

"Oh, well. I already got the tickets and I accidentally just verified it, too. So that means there's going to be at least two empty spots."

RELATED: George Clooney Donates $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative on President Trump's Behalf

A thread of some of the TikTokers/Zoomers who reserved tickets to Trump’s rally to shrink the crowd today in Oklahoma 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/ITz4NAbeTD
— Jenna Amatulli (@ohheyjenna) June 21, 2020

pic.twitter.com/hgg2JSOuz4
— Jenna Amatulli (@ohheyjenna) June 21, 2020

pic.twitter.com/tdXrp3K2al
— Jenna Amatulli (@ohheyjenna) June 21, 2020

The prank proved successful, as Forbes reported attendance was just under 6,200.

Following the event, Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale blamed the low turnout on "radical protestors" who blocked supporters from entering the arena.

Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID

Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud. ☺️ https://t.co/jGrp5bSZ9T
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020

U.S. Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez quickly refuted Parscale's claim, and responded: "Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID."

She added, "Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud." Looks like Trump officially got trolled.

Ocasio-Cortez thanks ‘TikTok teens’ who ‘tricked’ Trump campaign

Published: June 21, 2020 By Shawn Langlois

The upper section of the arena is seen partially empty as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in Tulsa, Oklahoma. GETTY

Kids these days.

Donald Trump’s big campaign rally in Tulsa wasn’t quite as big as promised, with the man leading the president’s re-election efforts explaining away the no-shows.

“Radical protestors, fueled by a week of apocalyptic media coverage, interfered with @realDonaldTrump supporters at the rally,” Brad Parscale explained. “They even blocked access to the metal detectors, preventing people from entering.”

Trump, for his part, took to the stage and backed that assessment, saying the media’s urging of his supporters not to attend on top of the protesters outside kept the crowds away.

“We begin our campaign,” Trump said. “The silent majority is stronger than ever before.”

But New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t buying it, and she shared her appreciation with those she believes duped the Trump administration:

Ocasio-Cortz was referring to the teenage TikTok users and K-pop fans who were reportedly behind the “millions” of ticket requests ahead of the event. After the Trump campaign’s official account posted a tweet asking supporters to register for free tickets earlier this month, the youngsters decided to prank the administration by pushing followers to sign up but not show.

If true, it sure seemed to work:

“It spread mostly through Alt TikTok — we kept it on the quiet side where people do pranks and a lot of activism,” YouTuber Elijah Daniel, 26, told the New York Times. “K-pop Twitter and Alt TikTok have a good alliance where they spread information amongst each other very quickly. They all know the algorithms and how they can boost videos to get where they want.”

Daniel, who took part in the prank, said most of the people deleted the evidence after the first day so that the Trump campaign wouldn’t catch wind.

“These kids are smart and they thought of everything,” he said.

Erin Hoffman was one of those “kids,” apparently.

“Trump has been actively trying to disenfranchise millions of Americans in so many ways, and to me, this was the protest I was able to perform,” she told the Times. “He doesn’t deserve the platform he has been given.” Hoffman also persuaded her parents to reserve two tickets.

With all the buzz over the prank, #TikTokTeens was trending on Twitter TWTR, -1.82% Sunday:

Zoomers Boast They Sabotaged Trump Rally Turnout With Fake Reservations

Mary Papenfuss HuffPost•June 21, 2020

Members of Generation Z are claiming on social media that the “Zoomers” are at least partially responsible for a number of empty seats at President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night.

As part of a campaign organized on social media, they reserved masses of tickets to the rally that they had no intention of using.

The rally-busting movement involved young TikTok users and K-Pop fans around the nation, according to the prank participants who posted their (unused) ticket confirmations or commented (and celebrated) online after the rally.
@eggzabeth

##greenscreenvideo IT WORKED ✨🤪🧚🏼‍♀️ ##trump ##trumprally♬ original sound - eggzabeth
@emilysdcp

GO REGISTER! And don’t forget to not show up! Take those seats away! ##trump ##trump2020 ##2020 ##trumprally ##republican ##tulsa JK ##blm ##lgbt ##voteblue♬ original sound - vividdreamergirl
@sawyermcd

Tik tok really did that! A million wasted tickets hahahah ##trumpresign ##fyp ##blm ##joebiden ##trumprally ##tulsa ##okboomer ##bye ##Summer2020 ##xyzbca ##fypp♬ yeeeee - cej2.11

Political strategist Steve Schmidt boasted on Twitter that his daughter and her friends in Park City, Utah, signed up for “hundreds” of free tickets to the rally they had absolutely no intention of attending. “You have been rolled by America’s teens,” Schmidt mocked Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale in a tweet.

My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens. @realDonaldTrump you have been failed by your team. You have been deserted by your faithful. No one likes to root for the losing team. @ProjectLincoln https://t.co/VM5elZ57Qp
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) June 20, 2020

This is what happened tonight. I’m dead serious when I say this. The teens of America have struck a savage blow against @realDonaldTrump. All across America teens ordered tickets to this event. The fools on the campaign bragged about a million tickets. lol. @ProjectLincoln.
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) June 20, 2020

Others responded to Schmidt’s tweets, saying they or their kids had also made fake ticket reservations.

Omg my 13 year old told me about teens getting tickets to keep the stands empty. Man do I love this generation! I am finally getting optimistic about our future.
— BeMerrie (@F2FNetwork) June 20, 2020


My 3 cats each have tickets 👍🏻
— ℍ𝕆𝕃𝕐 𝕊ℂℍℕ𝕀𝕂𝔼𝕊 🏳️‍🌈 (@aWomanResisting) June 20, 2020

The movement appears to have been launched by Mary Jo Laupp, a 51-year-old teacher from Iowa, who had worked on Pete Buttigieg’s campaign, CNN reported. She explained her idea in a TikTok video that had 700,000 likes by late Saturday.

@maryjolaupp
Did you know you can make sure there are empty seats at Trump’s rally? ##BLM.♬ original sound - maryjolaupp




On Saturday night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted at Parscale, saying he got “ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign” with fake reservations. The congresswoman also hailed “K-Pop allies,” saying: “We see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice, too.”

She added a “shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud.”

Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID

Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud. ☺️ https://t.co/jGrp5bSZ9T
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020

KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too 😌
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020

Trump’s campaign had heard of the plot, but may have misjudged its reach. Erin Perrine, principle deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, told CNN last week it was no big concern.

“Leftists do this all the time,” she said. “They think if they sign up for tickets that will leave empty seats. Not the case at all. Always way more ticket requests than seats available at a rally. All they are doing is giving us access to their contact information.”

Usually, tickets aren’t required for campaign rallies, the campaign told CNN. But the situation was different for the Tulsa event, because reservations included a legal disclaimer that participants wouldn’t sue Trump or the campaign if they contracted COVID-19 at the rally. And without a reservation, there would be no legal waiver for attendees to sign beforehand.

When videos from the event showed huge swathes of empty blue seats at the BOK Center where Trump spoke, which holds 19,000 people, TikTok users were thrilled.



“What did you guys do?” a stunned Laupp asked in a video Saturday after seeing the empty seats. “Like, seriously? Are you kidding me right now?”
@maryjolaupp

##TikTokGrandma ##SpeakUp THANK YOU!!!!!♬ original sound - maryjolaupp
@jilljillsiwa

Reply to @mopedrespecter gen Z and the Kpop army killed it... let’s keep it up! ##genz ##kpop ##ARMY ##generationz ##trumprally ##tulsa ##aoc ##vote ##voteblue♬ We Did It! - Dora The Explorer
@baby.witch.hours

##duet with @orphan_since2017 Awe I’m totally sooo sad 😔😔 ##trump ##makeamericagreatagain ##jkfucktrump ##dumptrump ##trump2020 ##trumprally ##fyp ##foryoupa♬ DONT DO THIS ALL IT DOES IS HELP TRUMP SORRY - orphan_since2017
@simonechalamet

##greenscreen speaks for itself dunnit ##fyp ##trump ##trumprally ##tulsa♬ original sound - emann_hh
@whitepapercupp

I think I’m gonna be sick on this day 😔✋✨ google his Tulsa rally and book your tickets! ##maga ##trump2020 ##donaldtrump ##allbirthdaysmatter♬ Macarena - Bass Bumpers Remix Radio Edit - Los Del Rio

TikTok Teens and K-Pop Stans Say They Sunk Trump Rally

Taylor Lorenz, Kellen Browning and Sheera Frenkel,
The New York Times•June 21, 2020

A Trump supporter sits alone in the top sections of seating at the president's Tulsa rally. (Getty Images)

President Donald Trump’s campaign promised huge crowds at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday, but it failed to deliver. Hundreds of teenage TikTok users and K-pop fans say they’re at least partially responsible.

Brad Parscale, the chairman of Trump’s reelection campaign, posted on Twitter on Monday that the campaign had fielded more than 1 million ticket requests, but reporters at the event noted the attendance was lower than expected. The campaign also canceled planned events outside the rally for an anticipated overflow crowd that did not materialize.

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said protesters stopped supporters from entering the rally, held at the BOK Center, which has a 19,000-seat capacity. Reporters present said there were few protests.

TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music groups claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Trump’s campaign rally as a prank. After the Trump campaign’s official account @TeamTrump posted a tweet asking supporters to register for free tickets using their phones June 11, K-pop fan accounts began sharing the information with followers, encouraging them to register for the rally — and then not show.

The trend quickly spread on TikTok, where videos with millions of views instructed viewers to do the same, as CNN reported Tuesday. “Oh no. I signed up for a Trump rally, and I can’t go,” one woman joked, along with a fake cough, in a TikTok posted June 15.

Thousands of other users posted similar tweets and videos to TikTok that racked up millions of views. Representatives for TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“It spread mostly through Alt TikTok — we kept it on the quiet side where people do pranks and a lot of activism,” said YouTuber Elijah Daniel, 26, who participated in the social media campaign. “K-pop, Twitter and Alt TikTok have a good alliance where they spread information amongst each other very quickly. They all know the algorithms and how they can boost videos to get where they want.”

Many users deleted their posts after 24 to 48 hours in order to conceal their plan and keep it from spreading into the mainstream internet. “The majority of people who made them deleted them after the first day because we didn’t want the Trump campaign to catch wind,” Daniel said. “These kids are smart, and they thought of everything.”

Twitter users Saturday night were quick to declare the social media campaign’s victory. “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted in response to Parscale, who had tweeted that “radical protestors” had “interfered” with attendance.

Steve Schmidt, a longtime Republican strategist, added, “The teens of America have struck a savage blow against @realDonaldTrump.”

Mary Jo Laupp, a 51-year-old from Fort Dodge, Iowa, said she had been watching Black TikTok users express their frustration about Trump hosting his rally on Juneteenth, the holiday on June 19. (The rally was later moved to June 20.) She “vented” her own anger in a late-night TikTok video June 11 — and provided a call to action.

“I recommend all of those of us that want to see this 19,000-seat auditorium barely filled or completely empty go reserve tickets now and leave him standing there alone on the stage,” Laupp said in the video.

When she checked her phone the next morning, Laupp said, the video was starting to go viral. It has more than 700,000 likes, she added, and more than 2 million views.

She said she believed that at least 17,000 tickets were accounted for based on comments she received on her TikTok videos but added that people reaching out to her said tens of thousands more had been reserved.

Laupp said she was “overwhelmed” and “stunned” by the possibility that she and the effort she helped inspire might have contributed to the low rally attendance.

“There are teenagers in this country who participated in this little no-show protest, who believe that they can have an impact in their country in the political system even though they’re not old enough to vote right now,” she said.

The effort to deprive Trump of a large crowd spread from Twitter and TikTok across multiple social media platforms, including Instagram and Snapchat.

Erin Hoffman, an 18-year-old from upstate New York, said she heard from a friend on Instagram about the social media campaign. She then spread it herself via her Snapchat story and said friends who saw her post told her they were reserving tickets.

“Trump has been actively trying to disenfranchise millions of Americans in so many ways, and to me, this was the protest I was able to perform,” said Hoffman, who reserved two tickets herself and persuaded one of her parents to nab two more. “He doesn’t deserve the platform he has been given.”

Laupp said that many of the people who shared her video added commentary encouraging people to procure the tickets with fake names and phone numbers. In the comment section under her own video, TikTok users exchanged advice on how to acquire a Google Voice number or another internet-connected phone line.

“We all know the Trump campaign feeds on data; they are constantly mining these rallies for data,” said Laupp, who worked on several rallies for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. “Feeding them false data was a bonus. The data they think they have, the data they are collecting from this rally, isn’t accurate.”

She added that several people who took part in her campaign complained that once they signed up for the rally with their real phone numbers, they couldn’t get the Trump campaign to stop texting them and sending them messages.

Mary Garcia, a 19-year-old student from California, said that she used a Google Voice number to sign up for the rally but that two of her friends who also signed up used their real numbers and had been inundated with texts from the Trump campaign.

Garcia said she decided to sign up on a whim after seeing Laupp’s video, but after she saw the Trump campaign boasting about its record-setting ticket numbers she regretted what she had done.

“I feel like it doesn’t even matter if the rally is full or not,” Garcia said. “They are going to boast about a million tickets being registered, and then they’ll just lie or whatever about how big the audience was.”

K-pop stans have been getting increasingly involved in American politics in recent months. After the Trump campaign solicited messages for the president’s birthday June 8, K-pop stans submitted a stream of prank messages. And earlier in June, when the Dallas Police Department asked citizens to submit videos of suspicious or illegal activity through a dedicated app, K-pop Twitter claimed credit for crashing the app by uploading thousands of “fancam” videos.

They also reclaimed the #WhiteLivesMatter hashtag in May by spamming it with endless K-pop videos in hopes to make it harder for white supremacists and sympathizers to find one another and communicate their messaging.

Whether or not the prank to call in false tickets was the reason for the empty upper rafters at Trump’s rally, teenagers online celebrated. On Twitter, several accounts tweeted, “best senior prank ever.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company

Approval of Trump's coronavirus response underwater, as he returns to campaign trail: POLL
KENDALL KARSON, ABC News•June 21, 2020

A solid majority of Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus, even as he returned to the campaign trail with a rally Saturday night that marked his first major event since the pandemic began, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday finds.

His approval now stands at 41%, similar to the 39% approval rating he received the last time the question was asked in a poll two weeks ago. Trump's disapproval now stands at 58%, compared to 60% last time.

MORE: 6 Trump campaign staffers test positive for COVID-19 ahead of Tulsa rally

For more than two months, Trump's approval for his response to the outbreak has been underwater, with disapproval consistently hovering in a narrow band from 57% to 60% since the end of April.

Since ABC News/Ipsos began polling on the coronavirus in mid-March, Trump's approval has mostly held steady, except for one week in March, when it was above water, at 55%, and his disapproval landed at 43%. The new poll was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' Knowledge Panel.

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19)? (ABC News/Ipsos Poll)
Despite the low marks, the president moved forward with his first in-person rally since March, which he said he viewed as the relaunch of his reelection campaign that was ground to a halt by the deadly virus.

Throughout the rally inside the BOK Center, where social distancing guidelines were not followed, Trump frequently brought up the coronavirus, giving himself high praise for his administration's response to the crisis.

"COVID-19," Trump said, "that name gets further and further away from China as opposed to calling it the Chinese virus. And despite the fact that we -- I have done a phenomenal job with it. ... We saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and all we do is get hit on like we're terrible."

MORE: Trump refers to COVID as 'Chinese virus,' 'kung flu' at Tulsa rally

In the United States, confirmed cases of the virus top 2.2 million and the death toll stands at nearly 120,000.

Trump's decision to hold a massive rally in Oklahoma came as multiple health officials warn that a packed event in an indoor arena that seats up to 19,000 could supercharge the spread of the coronavirus in an area that's already seeing cases on the rise.

MORE: Divisions emerge on renaming military bases, reparations amid unrest: POLL

The daily number of coronavirus cases statewide have increased over the last week, while the number of tests conducted each day has declined slightly, according to the state's health department. The number of daily cases in the Tulsa area has also trended upward over the past two weeks, while the rate of testing has remained about the same, according to Tulsa County's health department.

On the same day of the rally, Tulsa County reported it's highest one-day increase in coronavirus cases so far, with 136 new positive cases.

The campaign required supporters to sign a waiver saying they assume all risks if they are exposed to COVID-19 at the event, an effort to prevent any lawsuits.
PHOTO: President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he enters his first re-election campaign rally in several months in the midst of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 20, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters)More

Around the perimeter of the event, health care workers in personal protective equipment were on hand to check the temperatures of the attendees with hand scanners and kiosk temperature scanners before they entered the arena. There were also stations filled with face masks and hand sanitizer for the attendees.

The new survey comes just days after Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl on the "Powerhouse Politics" podcast, that his advice for people who want to attend Trump's rallies is the same for anti-Trump protestors - any large group is "a danger" and "risky." For anyone who insists on attending, he said, they should wear a mask.

MORE: Indoors, yelling and packed crowds: Experts sound alarm ahead of Trump's Tulsa rally amid coronavirus

Fauci, who said he personally would not attend the rally, has long been the leading scientific voice on the nation's response to the coronavirus, and a key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, which is charged with overseeing the administration's efforts to control and mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

But in recent weeks, the task force has faded in prominence, and earlier this week, Fauci told NPR's 1A program that he last spoke to Trump "two weeks ago."

PHOTO: President Donald Trump supporters cheer Eric Trump, the son of President Donald Trump, not pictured, before a Trump campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., June 20, 2020. (Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo)

Less than five months until the November general election, Trump's approval for his management of the coronavirus, which is likely to be a mainstay issue of the election, continues to fall sharply along partisan lines.

Among Democrats, only 6% approve of the president's stewardship through the crisis, with an overwhelming 94% disapproving. Republicans, on the other hand, are a near mirror image, with 90% approving of the president's coronavirus response, and 10% disapproving.

MORE: Fauci tells ABC's 'Powerhouse Politics' that attending rallies, protests is 'risky'

Independents again trace the attitudes of the country, with 59% disapproving and 40% approving.

Trump is also struggling more with women than men on this issue, with 62% of female respondents disapproving of his handling of the pandemic, compared to 54% of men. Just over one-third of women approve of the president's leadership, compared to 46% of men.

Racial groups, too, show division. White Americans (50%) are nearly four times as likely as black Americans (13%) and twice as likely as Hispanics (25%) to approve of Trump's coronavirus response. Overwhelming majorities of black Americans (85%) and Hispanics (74%) disapprove of the president on this issue, with 49% of white Americans feeling the same.

This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs' KnowledgePanel® June 17-18, 2020, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 727 adults, with oversamples of black and Hispanic respondents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.1 points, including the design effect. See the poll's topline results and details on the methodology here.

ABC News' Will Steakin and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

Approval of Trump's coronavirus response underwater, as he returns to campaign trail: POLL originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

As US marks 100th anniversary of Tulsa race massacre, African Americans still feel outcast

Issued on: 31/05/2021 - 

Text by: FRANCE 24Follow|

Video by: Solange MOUGIN

AT THE END OF THE ARTICLE 

At the foot of modern buildings on an anonymous street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a few discreet metal plaques catch the eye. "Grier shoemaker," "Earl real estate" -- riveted to the ground, they bear the names of Black-owned businesses that once stood there before being destroyed during one of the worst racial massacres in the United States, in 1921.

A rare vestige of a neighbourhood so prosperous it was called Black Wall Street, the plaques prove that the history of Greenwood -- a historically Black neighborhood of Tulsa -- is understood not by the monuments that currently stand, but the ones that are no longer there.

On the eve of a visit from President Joe Biden, popular with African-American voters, who will attend Tuesday's commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the massacre, and after a year marked by the Black Lives Matter movement, the killings resonate with current events more than ever.

Destroyed neighbourhood

"They came over and destroyed Greenwood and burned everything down," Bobby Eaton, 86, a neighborhood resident and former civil rights activist, told AFP.

A century ago, in the southern US town, the arrest of a young Black man accused of assaulting a white woman sparked one of the worst outpourings of racial violence ever seen in the country.

On May 31, 1921, after the arrest of Dick Rowland, hundreds of furious white people gathered outside the Tulsa courthouse, signalling to Black residents that a lynching -- a common practice at the time and until as recently as the 1960s -- was imminent.

A group of African-American World War I veterans, some of them armed, mobilized in an attempt to protect Rowland.

Tensions spiked and shots were fired. Fewer in number, the African-American residents retreated to Greenwood, known at the time for its economic prosperity and many businesses.

The next day, at dawn, white men looted and burned the buildings, chasing down and beating Black people living there. All day long, they ransacked Black Wall Street -- police not only did not intervene but joined in the destruction -- until nothing was left but ruins and ashes, killing up to 300 people in the process. The destruction left some 10,000 people homeless.

With a blue cap on his head and a T-shirt commemorating the massacre's centennial pulled over his shirt, Eaton feels marked by this event that he never saw but heard so much about as a child in his father's barber shop.

"I learned a lot about the riots as a very young person, that has never left my memory," he said.

'Don't own the land'

In his opinion, as with many others in the neighbourhood, it was the African-American prosperity that sparked the destruction. "That caused a great amount of jealousy, and it's still doing so.

"That mentality that destroyed Greenwood to begin with, to a great extent still exists right here in Tulsa," Eaton said.

>> Inside the Americas: 1921 Tulsa massacre - Remembering a dark chapter in American history

Even 100 years after the massacre, racial tensions remain high.

In the Black Wall Street Liquid Lounge – a coffee shop named, like many businesses in Greenwood, in homage to the neighbourhood's golden age – Kode Ransom, a 32-year-old African-American man, sports long dreadlocks and a big smile as he greets customers.

A happy co-manager of the business, he has one regret: not owning the walls around him.

"People hear 'Black Wall Street', they think that it's completely controlled by Black people. It's actually not," he said.

Ransom estimates that about 20 African-American-owned businesses exist in Greenwood, and they all pay rent.

"We don't own the land," he said.

An urban planning policy, called urban renewal, carried out by the Tulsa city council since the 1960s, has had the effect of driving out African-American owners whose houses or businesses, deemed dilapidated, were demolished to make way for new buildings.

The construction of a seven-lane highway through the middle of the main street finished disfiguring the neighbourhood.

"At the time when Greenwood was Greenwood, you had 40 blocks, and now it's all being condensed down to half of a street... and even on that half of a street it's still not really just Black Wall Street," said Ransom, sighing.

Evicted

A few meters from the cafe, in the Greenwood Art Gallery, manager Queen Alexander, 31, arranges the exhibited paintings, which celebrate African-American culture.

She also pays rent – and it's about to go up by 30 percent. The opening of a large museum dedicated to the neighbourhood's history, the Greenwood Rising History Center, which will officially open Wednesday, has caused rent for the surrounding businesses to increase.

One of her acquaintances, who had run a beauty salon in Greenwood for more than 40 years, was evicted. "She couldn't afford the rent," said Alexander.

Outside the bay windows of her gallery, Alexander observes the gentrification at work.

"You do see now white people walking their dogs, and riding their bikes, in neighbourhoods that you would never have seen them before," she said, noting the opening of a baseball field, a Starbucks and "a college that I probably couldn't afford."

For her, Greenwood without its African-American owners and historic buildings is no longer really Black Wall Street but "Greenwood district with some Black business leases."

And "if we all get evicted tomorrow, this is white Wall Street."

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Why Black wealth has stayed 'relatively flat' since Tulsa massacre

Kristin Myers Yahoo Finance June 19, 2020

In the roughly 100 years since the Greenwood massacre and more than 150 years since the official end of slavery on “Juneteenth,” studies show little progress has been made to reduce the racial wealth gap between black and white households. While many economic, legislative, and social proposals have been made to eliminate the gap between white and Black Americans, some say that reparations is the only hope.

By 1921, the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Okla., was a thriving black community. Dubbed the “Black Wall Street,” the district featured restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, grocery stores, two newspapers, and more.

“It was quite extraordinary,” says folklorist and reparations scholar and author Kirsten Mullen. “There were probably few places like it in the southwest. It was held up at the time as a star.”

Though the name lends itself to a comparison with the street and financial center in New York, Mullen says it does not compare to “the volume and capitalization” of New York’s Wall Street.

What’s more, Greenwood wasn’t the only “Black Wall Street” in the United States. Black wealth was being created in neighborhoods around the country, in places like Durham, N.C., and Richmond, Va.

But it wasn’t long before these thriving black neighborhoods were noticed, and eventually destroyed.
The Greenwood Massacre

Just under 100 years ago, the Greenwood district was destroyed in an event that has been called the Greenwood massacre.

After accusations of a sexual assault on a white woman, Greenwood was attacked. Stores and homes were looted, and hundreds died. The neighborhood was set on fire: from the ground, and from planes dropping incendiary devices from overhead.

“In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, over 800 people were treated for injuries and contemporary reports of deaths began at 36. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died,” states the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum.

A memorial to Tulsa's Black Wall Street sits outside the Greenwood Cultural Center on the outskirts of downtown Tulsa, Okla. A once-prosperous section of Tulsa that became the site of one of the worst race riots in American history is attempting to remake itself again after decades of neglect. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

Mullen’s research partner, economist William Darity said there has been a “long American history of denying and destroying” Black wealth.

“There was a wave of these massacres from late 1800 until the 1940’s,” he explained. “Prosperous Black communities were essentially destroyed.”

“In the year 1919 alone, there were upwards of 35 or 36 of these massacres,” he said.
No progress made

But, Darity and Mullen said, the racial wealth gap was already wide prior to the Tulsa massacre, and Black wealth has stayed “relatively flat” since.

“The black curve looks relatively flat, and the white curve skyrockets upwards,” Darity said.

“Historical data reveal that no progress has been made in reducing income and wealth inequalities between black and white households over the past 70 years,” according to a study from Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Examining data from 1949, the Minneapolis Fed found that “income has grown at a comparable rate for black and white households.”

But, they noted, “this means that pre-civil rights era disparities have largely persisted.” Over time, the “typical” black household is “poorer than 80% of white households,” the authors wrote.

This is the result of “the cumulative effect of government policy in terms of action and inaction. The federal government never intervened to address these white massacres,” said Darity.

Simply put, the flatness of black wealth over time “is the result of American public policy,” he said.

Darity noted that reliable data on black wealth only extends as far back as 70 years, but points to the Homestead Act of 1862 as the beginning of economic disparity between Blacks and whites in the country.

At the end of the Civil War, while freed slaves were denied their promised 40 acres and a mule, he said, whites were given hundreds of acres of free land.


Destruction of black wealth

Over the course of the next century and a half, black communities were systematically destroyed through massacres or through the policy of urban renewal, that razed communities to make way for highways or luxury buildings and shops.

In some instances, Mullen said, these public works projects were never even started.

In the late 19th century, “land was a major source of wealth,” Darity said. “Particularly for folks with middle-income status.” By the 20th century that source of wealth changed — to homeownership.

Denied access to land before the turn of the century, Black households were then subject to racist policies of redlining, contract buying, and land devaluation.

While not the sole predatory policies that plagued the black community, these real estate-based discriminatory practices robbed and denied Blacks in the country of billions.

Redlining ensured that Blacks couldn’t purchase homes in white neighborhoods, systematically denying families mortgages, home insurance, or loans. The practice derived its name from the red line drawn on maps demarcating areas where African Americans lived. Banks would then justify the practice, deeming neighborhoods that had redlined at a “higher risk” for default.

Division of opinions in Chicago. White children play ball in street just west of Ashland as an African American family passes. White homeowners to west of Ashland have formed block clubs, designed to keep the neighborhood white. (AP Photo/JLP)

And when black families went to purchase a home, many fell prey to the practice of contract buying. The scam allowed a home seller to deny a buyer ownership of a home until the home was purchased in full. The buyer would first put down a large down payment, and then make high interest monthly payments. But until the home was purchased in full, the seller held the deed and could evict the buyer at any time. The buyer never accumulated equity in their homes, and no laws protected them.

Once a home was purchased, many African Americans have found their assets to be routinely undervalued, despite structural characteristics and neighborhood amenities that are comparable to white-owned homes nearby.

These practices were deemed illegal and discriminatory over 50 years ago with the Fair Housing Act, but the impact remains today.

According to the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), “much less than half (42%) of Black families own their homes, compared to almost three-quarters (73%) of White families.”
Reparations

In total, these policies over the last century and a half since the Civil War’s end have had the cumulative effect of the depletion of Black wealth.

The JEC has noted in their 2020 study that African Americans experience poverty and unemployment rates that are twice that of their white counterparts, lower life expectancies, and have less than one-tenth the median wealth of whites.

But how to undo centuries of racist policies designed to prevent African Americans from accumulating wealth?

Both Darity and Mullen, authors of the book “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” say that reparations is the only way.

Without it, Darity paints a fairly bleak picture on the ability of African Americans to achieve equality. “Black Americans cannot eliminate the racial wealth gap with their autonomous actions, and with their existing resources,” he said.

And as President Trump plans to hold his political rally in Tulsa on June 20, the threads of the Greenwood Massacre carry through today.

After Tulsa, “whatever momentum Black Americans were building that might have contributed to some closure of the wealth gap was immediately demolished,” Darity said.

Kristin Myers is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.

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