Bush Admissions View: He’s No King or JFK

Re “Bush Shows Leadership in Race Issue,” Commentary, Jan. 19: I am incensed by the comments of Ward Connerly. What nerve he has to invoke the names of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. in his attempt to link them with President Bush. Does he think all of us are crazy?

As a black man, I am disgusted. Connerly is an embarrassment to our race. Nine out of 10 black people do not agree with his views of affirmative action. The first President Bush gave us Justice Clarence Thomas, and former Gov. Pete Wilson gave us Connerly. This was an insult. We have had it with these Uncle Toms. If I had my way, both would be tried for treason.

Adolphe Alexander

Chino

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Thank you so much for yet another dimwitted, shallow cartoon by Michael Ramirez (Commentary, Jan. 19). Not only did he completely miss the point, as usual, of the issue he seeks to satirize, but he managed to tweak the image of King just in time for the national holiday honoring his memory.

The cartoon addresses the supposed lack of fairness in affirmative action-based university admission policies such as those at the University of Michigan. The people who shortsightedly quarrel with affirmative action as unfair would do well to remember that for many generations, being admitted to college was not even an option for blacks and other minorities in this country. They were in many parts, however, permitted to swing from the end of a rope for the most innocuous of offenses and, quite often, for having committed no offense at all.

Affirmative action, whether in the workplace or on college campuses, seeks in some ways to make amends for many, many decades of severe injustice.

Marc Gregory

Beverly Hills

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In “Michigan Campus Erupts in Debate Over Affirmative Action” (Jan. 19), it is noted that applicants from Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula are awarded 16 points in the admissions system.

Will Bush, in his brief to be filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, declare this practice as an unconstitutional consideration of one’s place of residence as a condition of admittance to the university?

Daniel Kelly

Redondo Beach