\n<\/p>\n
As the politics in Smithtown started to become extremely heated over the past two years, the battles attracted attention, first locally, then nationally.<\/p>\n
And now, internationally.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the German newspaper TAZ (short for Die Tageszeitung) published a 2,500-word piece on Smithtown School District board meetings and the politics of the town and moment. The newspaper itself has been unabashedly left-leaning since its founding in 1978. The reporter, a well-known German correspondent living in New York named Dorothea Hahn, gave both sides space to speak. But the piece clearly sided against the attendees who have started showing up to oppose mask mandates and the (theoretical) teaching of “Critical Race Theory,” three of whom won seats on that board last May.<\/p>\n
The piece is circulating on Facebook thanks to Maddox Elbert, a 13-year-old student and activist in the district. Elbert posted a link on his page, along with an English version he created with Google Translate.<\/p>\n
Elbert told The Point he was not at the meeting Hahn attended, though he knows others she interviewed who were, and said she took some of his comments (such as belonging to his school\u2019s LGBTQ group) and the ugly crowd response from recordings of meetings.<\/p>\n
The (loosely?) translated headline of the piece is “Culture War in the Auditorium:”<\/p>\n
And in English, the first paragraph reads:<\/p>\n