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Former Oklahoma City mayor and Putnam City school board member Kirk Humphreys, who also is a member of the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents, is sort of in trouble for what many see as racist comments he made on a local political television show.

“When I went on the school board 30 … 25 years ago … a little over… we were probably the best school district in the state. We just happened to have the best gene pool,” Humphreys said on the March 8 episode of Flashpoint. “But that gene pool keeps moving out. It’s moved to Edmond, it’s now moved to Deer Creek, and you know, they’ll keep running as long as they can buy green fields and gasoline for their car.”

OKC Public Schools Superintendent Rob Neu, former Oklahoma attorney general Mike Turpen, Humphreys and the show’s host, Kevin Ogle, were discussing problems in the OKC school district and the unique challenges its demographics pose when the comment was made.

In the time period that Humphreys was talking about, school desegregation and white flight sent wealthier OKC residents into less-diverse suburbs like Edmond, Norman and Deer Creek.

Blue Nation Review pointed out that OKC’s population was 79.2 percent white in 1990 and dropped to 62.7 percent in 2010.

However, Humphreys told NewsOK.com that people misunderstood him and he meant that “upwardly mobile and more affluent” families were the ones moving to the suburbs and that his comments weren’t race-related.

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