Ability, Not Color, Is the Issue for Voters
In all the articles printed about the recent 7th District City Council election, it was stressed over and over that 70% of the population is Latino, but less than a third of its registered voters are Latino and nearly half are Anglo.
This implies that a Latino will vote only for a fellow Latino or a white will only vote for the white candidate.
In Thursday’s article, there was a breakdown of the precincts by race and for whom they voted. For example, it pointed out that LeRoy Chase (the only black candidate) got the “black” vote in the area with the “heaviest concentrations of blacks.”
I object to your coverage repeatedly painting this as an election about a candidate being automatically qualified (or disqualified) because of nationality.
How dare Richard Alarcon try to persuade the labor unions not to endorse Lyle Hall because Hall is not Latino. It is just as ludicrous to assume that one should vote for a candidate because of his nationality (Alarcon) as it is to assume that one should not vote for a candidate because of his nationality (Hall).
By the way, I’m Asian. Who am I supposed to vote for?
Once again, we have got to focus on the fact that elections are about ability, not about nationality.
JOYCELYN FURGINSON
Lake View Terrace
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