Critical race theory is a cross-disciplinary examination by social and civil-rights scholars and activists of how laws, social and political movements and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goals include challenging all mainstream and “alternative” views of racism and racial justice, including conservative, liberal and progressive.
I am not a member of the party that has suggested slavery should be renamed “involuntary relocation.” These are the attitudes that must be examined.
Mr. David Christian Newton wants to go back to a nicer time “yesterdays approach,” which of course resulted in Texas being 13th from the bottom in scholastic achievement (Jan. 13). I am not suggesting that we abandon our accomplishments; I am suggesting we build on them before we are outpaced by other countries.
In closing, sir, I might ask: Considering where you live (Ciudad Victoria, Mexico), why did you leave and abandon the real boots-on-the-ground Americans?
Ned Sheats
Mission
Don’t improve
Valley beaches
On your opinion page on Jan. 17, the editorial stated an $81.8 million sand dune restoration and storm protection project was added to the recently passed defense budget. Does Sen. John Cornyn know something we the public does not know? Are these dunes our defense against Russian seafarers coming ashore and pillaging Padre Island?
I can see the deadlines now: “Russia annexes Padre Island,” and the terror this headline would instill in our Valley’s population.
We are overtaxed here in Texas, according to our ballooning state surplus of $31 billion and counting. Why is this huge surplus not used to better the lives here in Texas? Why is all this money stashed away losing its value due to inflation?
My property taxes have been raised every year since Greg Abbott was elected governor! If I budgeted our household money the way our politicians do, we would starve!
Bill Williams
Palmview
Be responsible
for your pets
For more than 40 years my wife and I would travel south to the Valley to celebrate Christmas with family. Every time we crossed the “line” at Texarkana, I would always say, “Now we enter the land of the dead dogs,” because we would see dead dogs along the side of the road all the way to the Valley.
Now we are here and when we travel to north Texas that no longer is the case — but it still is here in the Valley. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t see one or more dead dogs along the road.
On Feb. 4, on a short drive from Elsa to San Carlos, there were five dead dogs on the side of the road.
What is wrong with the people of the Rio Grande Valley? If you are going to own a dog, take the responsibility for caring for that dog. Keep it in your yard or house. Teach it to obey commands. If you can afford it, have a chip placed under its skin. And by all means have your dog or cat neutered or spayed so that so many strays are not wandering the highways getting killed in their last terrifying moments of life.
Be a responsible pet owner.
Gerard Pahl
Edinburg
