Affirmative Action

Regarding your March 30 poll on affirmative action: I do not like affirmative action, because I believe that it is tantamount to countering bias with bias in a relatively unthinking manner.

The lot of African Americans in this country nonetheless appalls me.

This country took a group of people who could be distinguished by skin color and, because they could be distinguished by skin color, turned them into slaves. It then freed them but made virtually no effort to integrate them into the larger society, particularly into the economic structure of that larger society.

The freeing of the slaves could be compared to allowing infants the “freedom” to fend for themselves. What meaning does freedom have outside a context of social and economic integration, and when were African Americans as a group ever given the opportunity to fully join in the social and economic life of this society?

Does anyone truly believe that it is in the best interest of the United States to maintain a poor, underutilized, hated underclass consisting to a great extent of African Americans?

MORTON SCHAEFFER

West Hollywood