Dear Editor,

(In response to the June 30 Clarkston News article “Critical Race Theory not part of Clarkston schools’ curriculum.”)
You likely noticed that while they (members of the Clarkston Education Association who are the local affiliates of the National Education Association that recently backed Critical Race Theory) claim CRT is not being taught by name, they want to use “methods informed by CRT.”
Have any of them mentioned its roots in Marxism?
Why would educators or people attempting to influence them be dishonest about what they want taught and try to sneak it in?
Food for thought.
As for what should be taught, I can think of a story.
Imagine a group of locals having a chat at the local restaurant about how distant elected officials dictate their lives and couldn’t care less about what they thought or felt. How folks just trying to get by were being taxed into the ground without anyone to really represent them to their “rulers.”
Even the idea of rulers seemed ridiculous to them. They only knelt before God, after all.
So they started to write down their grievances, to meet with others that held them. To start a press and post to communicate to others, attending their town halls and councils to discuss them.
Sound a little familiar?
This is how the American Revolution started, with Benjamin Franklin’s committees of correspondence. The revolution was one of uniting the people in purpose and erecting their own structures of self-sufficiency and governance. The declaration of independence was just that; America was independent from the global empire of England.
England’s response was to crush this “rebellion” with military force, to which Americans were able to defend. It wasn’t the war that resulted in America’s independence, but the cooperation and self-governance of the people.

Sincerely,
Steven Sioma
Clarkston