Civil Rights and Quotas

It seems that in the past few weeks, there have been a number of columns and letters written by angry whites who oppose affirmative action, and they all seem to have one thing in common; while vehemently opposing affirmative action, they fail to mention any alternatives.

If you don’t like affirmative action, fine. But for an issue in which there exists such an obvious and difficult impasse, I think the least whites owe us is a set of alternatives. And when I say “alternatives,” I mean measures that address our concerns as well as theirs.

I think that affirmative action is an imperfect and incomplete yet very appropriate remedy to many years of discrimination against ethnic minorities. But if someone has a better solution, I’m all ears.

PAUL RUIZ, National City