The headline of an article published Aug. 17 reads “Community discussion on critical race theory gets heated.“ Out of 135 people present, a handful of attendees wanted to engage the audience with an agenda instead of asking questions of the panel — getting half of the Summit Daily News coverage and stealing the headline.

As one of the presenters, I found the article slanted. The focus of the piece seemed to be mostly about a fraction of the evening: the Q&A session. I was pleased by the decorum shown by all throughout the event until some misconstrued the intent of a Q&A session and began to proselytize. I was especially disheartened by the coverage given to one person who was quoted as saying, “I honestly thought it was a chance for me to be educated on what is going on.“

Well, between Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier and myself, we gave more than a dozen examples of the divisive effects critical race theory is having across the military. That is what is going on. We could provide an additional 500 examples. I do hope my beloved Summit County comes to realize racism in America would essentially be dead today if it were not for certain people and institutions keeping it on life-support. Unfortunately, one of those institutions is our educational system.

Putting critical race theory into our classrooms is not combating racism; it is fanning the flames of what little embers are left. If our minority brothers and sisters in our community are having difficulty in our schools, then let’s give them every bit of extra instruction they need. Just don’t go about it by creating racial divides. E pluribus unum!