Patricia Ortiz/Houston Public Media
Two dozen local organizations signed and sent a letter to Houston Mayor John Whitmire this morning asking him to apologize for comments he made about Gulfton residents which they consider “deeply offensive.”
The mayor told the Houston Landing last month that Houstonians in Gulfton are “largely undocumented immigrants. They just want basic services. They don’t want to be part of the Galleria. You think they’re going to be welcome in the Galleria?”
Metro has been working on getting bus rapid transit lines to go through Gulfton to areas such as the BakerRipley Center. The transit agency is also planning a route to the Galleria.
Gulfton is a neighborhood in west Houston that’s one of the city’s most diverse areas. The top language here is Spanish, according to estimates by the American Community Survey in 2019, the latest available data on the area. Around 40% of Gulfton residents live below the poverty line.
The letter, signed by organizations such as United We Dream, the Texas Civil Rights Project and Black Lives Matter Houston, calls Whitmire’s comments “not only deeply offensive but also reveal a shocking level of ignorance and prejudice.”
It adds that his statement “is an egregious misrepresentation that smacks of xenophobia and a disturbing detachment from the community you claim to serve.”
A letter to Mayor John Whitmire asking for an apology for recent comments about the Gulfton community.
Signatures of those who signed a letter to Mayor John Whitmire asking for an apology for recent comments about the Gulfton community.
All of the organizations represented in the letter.
Maria Hernandez is the executive director of Madres del Parque which works to protect community parks in the city including Gulfton. She lives in Sharpstown, another diverse area of Houston, and is one of the 26 people who signed the letter. She also says she is also “a proud migrant woman.”
“I want him just to realize that we are as human being as them,” Hernandez said of Whitmire, “That we are part of this community, part of this country, part of this Houston area — that we are looking to improve our lives.”
The mayor’s office commented to Houston Public Media about the issue but didn’t include an apology to Gulfton residents, which the letter asked him for.
“My support for Gulfton as a senator and now as mayor is well established. I am partnering with Harris County Commissioner Briones and other stakeholders,” Whitmire’s office wrote. “We are listening to residents and will make a positive difference in Gulfton. Metro has a plan for the area. It is in the process of designing a data-driven strategy to improve mobility, giving people better access to reach services at BakerRipley and Legacy Clinic.”
Karthik Soora, who wrote the letter and is a renewable energy project developer, told Houston Public Media that “the Mayor’s implication that they and other Houstonians should be confined solely to their neighborhood to determine their life circumstances was like a slap in the face.”
Daniel Cohen chairs Indivisible Houston, a local progressive grassroots organization, and also signed the letter. He said “There are a lot of people who’ve been dissatisfied with the mayor’s first six months in office” but that Whitmire’s comments on Gulfton stood out “because it’s an incident that very clearly marked wide facet stereotyping of what different people in Houston are, who they are like, who they like to associate with.”
Additionally, Cohen said the mayor’s comment may mean he thinks of people who are undocumented “as not wanting to go to Galleria and do things that like Houstonians do by and large.” Cohen added that Whitmire also “stereotyped the people in the Galleria as being unwelcoming people who would come from Gulfton.”
“It is just not the kind of voice that we want to, you know, not the kind of statement that we want to hear,” he added.
Cohen’s sentiments echoed that of City Council Member Edward Pollard whose district includes Gulfton. Pollard confronted the mayor at a city hall meeting last month saying “What hurt me about that is we’re making generalizations on a particular community that is extremely diverse.”
Soora said he is hopeful the mayor apologizes for his remarks.
“Since he’s my elected leader, and I want Houston to prosper,” Soora wrote. “I’m rooting for him to change course, apologize, listen way more, prioritize the interests of working-class Houstonians, and be the leader that this city deserves.”
But he warned that if Whitmire doesn’t, “if the Mayor continues to move forward in this way, opposition will grow.”
