(The Center Square) – Members of the media and some people on social media are mocking flood victims in Texas claiming they deserved death and suffering because they claim the victims are white and voted for President Donald Trump.
The latest is a cartoon published by the Buffalo News, which Erie County, NY, GOP Chairman Michael Kracker says should be taken down immediately. The Buffalo News cartoon depicts a white man wearing a red MAGA hat drowning holding a sign that says, “help,” while also saying, “the government is the problem not the solution.”
“The Buffalo News ran a cartoon mocking Texas families who lost loved ones in a tragedy, just because they might’ve voted Republican. Twisted, vile, and shameful. They owe those families an apology and should pull this filth immediately,” Kracker said on X.
Prior to that, two women in Houston appeared to wish death on flood victims because of their perceived political affiliations, including targeting deceased children. They were both fired.
Houston’s Democratic Mayor John Whitmire continues to denounce such claims, expressing compassion for flood victims. More than 30 confirmed dead and missing are children, including several from Houston.
At a city council meeting on Tuesday, Whitmire called for the city “to unite in mourning and recognize how blessed we all are to be with our families, our grandchildren when people are suffering such unimaginable loss.” Houston Fire Department swift water and search and recovery teams are currently involved in search and rescue efforts.
“It’s really a struggle,” Whitmire said. “You can’t get it off your mind. We’ve got some Houstonians who’ve lost the most precious thing in their life.
“This is not a time for division. But a time of unity for our entire city, state and nation.”
When hearing of the profanity-laced attack of parents and children at Camp Mystic made by Sade Perkins, a Houston Food Insecurity Board member, Whitmire had her permanently removed.
Perkins posted a video on TikTok stating in part that “in today’s political climate, if this were a group of Hispanic girls, especially with them being in East Texas, … this would not be getting this type of coverage that they’re getting. No one would give a [expletive]. The parents of these little girls would be saying things like, ‘they need to be deported, they shouldn’t have been here in the first place.’” She said the parents chose to send their children to an “all-white enclave, exclusionary just for white people, with all the Black people in East Texas, with all the Hispanic people in East Texas.”
She said she has “a big problem with” calls “to have sympathy for these people. They want you to get out of your bed and to come out of your home and to go find these people and donate, meanwhile they’re deporting your family members, meanwhile they’re setting up concentration camps for children.”
Camp Mystic, a girl’s camp in Hunt in central Texas, confirmed 27 children and camp counselors were killed in the July 4 flash floods. Five campers and one counselor are still missing.
The camp has multi-ethnic campers. Its longtime employees, JC and Ira Bell Mattox, a Black couple, first came to work at the camp in 1952 when Texas was still segregated.
After the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, where nearly all victims were Hispanic, international media coverage descended on the rural border town; Americans nationwide offered sympathy, donated and volunteered, The Center Square reported.
Perkins’ boyfriend, Colin Bossen with First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, disavowed her comments and apologized for any harm they “caused to the Camp Mystic families and the members of the community of Central Texas …” The church said her comments “contradict the core values of our church, and we are horrified to be associated with these comments.”
Also in Houston, pediatrician Dr. Christina Propst appeared to wish death on everyone and their pets who voted for Trump in a since-deleted tweet. “May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry. Kerr County MAGA voted to gut FEMA. They deny climate change. May they get what they voted for. Bless their hearts,” she wrote.
In response, Blue Fish Pediatrics published a statement saying she was “no longer employed” there and strongly condemned her comments. The practice said it doesn’t “support or condone any statement that politicizes tragedy, diminishes human dignity, or fails to clearly uphold compassion for every child and family” and extends “full support to the families and the surrounding communities who are grieving, recovering, and searching for hope.” After being fired, Propst published an apology.
More than 109 have been confirmed dead and 171 confirmed missing statewide from the historic July 4 flood as of Tuesday afternoon, The Center Square reported.
