Demonstrators protest Senate inaction on stimulus relief
A mobile demonstration was held outside a senator's Oklahoma City office on Monday to protest the U.S. Senate' s plans to hold Supreme Court confirmation hearings while refusing to approve a second pandemic stimulus package.
The Oklahoma Poor People's Campaign, the state chapter of the Poor People' s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, protested outside the building that houses Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe's office at 3817 Northwest Expressway.
Bradley Havenar, t he campaign's state coordinator, said the Oklahoma affiliate was one of 10 states that participated in the“McConnell' s Caravan” initiative, named after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, who has promised to fast-track the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
“There' s people in Oklahoma who need help and the Senate has had plenty of opportunities to pass a second stimulus package but they haven't. They've completely failed at that job,” Havenar said.
“Now they plan to rush through a Supreme Court justice nominee and there are still people suffering in our state and in our country. And that's unacceptable.”
Haven ar led a small group of demonstrators in three cars to Inhofe's office building, but they were blocked from getting too close to the building. People stood next to barricades placed at the entrance/exit outlets around the building to prevent the barriers from being moved. An individual in Inhofe's Oklahoma City office said someone with the congressman's Washington, D.C., office would respond to a media inquiry but no one gave a comment late Monday.
Meanwhile, the caravan, with honking horns and a blaring siren drove numerous times around an outlying parking lot. At one point, Haven ar got out of his car and stood outside the barriers to participate in alivestreamed caravan event hosted by Poor People's Campaign co- chairman the Rev. William Barber II and other activists.
Haven art old Barber that his group was outside Inhofe's office even though they had been barred from getting close to the building.
“We' ve adapted so we're doing circles around the parking lot and making noise. There are too many Oklahomans out here suffering because our politicians are worried about something else,” he told Barber.
The minister told Haven ar not to be discouraged because Inhofe's office obviously knew about the planned protest in advance and sought to curtail it in some way.
“Oh, they knew you were coming. Protesting is not just protesting, it's an act of love. If you did not love Oklahoma, love the people who are hurting, you wouldn't be out there,” Barber said.
Other people who participated in the demonstration said they were concerned about Oklahomans struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic.
“I'm a huge fan of Rev. Barber's and his quest for
justice. This particular subject affects my community because I'm Black and indigenous. It affects Black and brown communities in poverty and this pandemic has made it a lot worse,” said Sache Primeau-Shaw, president of Young Democrats of Oklahoma.
She said the COVID-19
crisis has also negatively impacted people in the middle class, as well and they, too, need more financial relief “because they are struggling.”
“It's just a travesty that the U.S. Senate is not even considering giving out this second stimulus package,” Primeau-Shaw said.