Houston Mayor John Whitmire said he is working to “permanently” remove a former member of the city’s food insecurity board after she made racially charged comments about Camp Mystic, a Christian all-girls camp in Kerr County that has been particularly devastated by the flooding in the Texas Hill Country.
The nearly century-old camp along the Guadalupe River announced Monday that 27 of its campers and counselors had died in Friday’s floods, while others remained missing. Among those unaccounted for are two elementary school students from Houston.
Sade Perkins, the former member of Houston’s food insecurity board, referred to Camp Mystic as a “whites only enclave” in a widely circulated TikTok video over the weekend.
“I know I’m probably going to get canceled for this, but Camp Mystic is a whites-only, girls’ Christian camp,” Perkins said in the video.
“It’s not to say that we don’t want the girls to be found … but you best believe, especially in today’s political climate, if there were a group of Hispanic girls … this would not be getting this type of coverage,” Perkins also said.
Whitmire said in a Sunday statement he has “no plans to reappoint” Perkins, whose term on the board expired in January, and that the city “is taking immediate steps to remove her permanently from the board.” She was appointed to the board in October 2023 by former Mayor Sylvester Turner, according to Whitmire.
The food insecurity board is responsible for advising and making recommendations to the mayor, city council and city department directors to address issues related to food insecurity in Houston.
“The comments shared on social media are deeply inappropriate and have no place in a decent society, especially as families grieve the confirmed deaths and the ongoing search for the missing,” Whitmire said in his statement.
Perkins did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
At least 75 people in Kerr County have died in the floods. Additional deaths have been reported in surrounding counties.
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