Readers React: Race and the arc of history

Re “Was Martin Luther King wrong?,” Opinion, April 28

Martin Luther King Jr. was right: The arc of the moral universe is very long, and it does bend toward justice. This means that many things can happen along the sweeping path of the arc that are not just. If we are too close to the details, it becomes hard to see which way the arc is bending.

Affirmative action is a necessary but dangerous tool of the law. Well used, it can help bend the arc toward justice. Poorly applied, it can take advantages away from others who deserve to have them.

Even worse, it can create resentment of those who are given preferences they may not fully deserve.

Bruce Ackerman is so caught up in the details of history that he loses sight of the way in which the arc is bending.

Robert E. Doud

Glendale

Ackerman doesn’t mention that Barry Goldwater’s opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act was atypical for him: He voted against it for constitutional, not racial, reasons, whereas Lyndon Johnson’s celebrated “conversion” to civil rights was demonstrably a cynical one.

Blacks and other minorities have more to fear from Democrats’ relentless racial agitprop and family-destroying welfare policies than they do from Republicans, their historic allies, and the Supreme Court — which, along with even some liberals, has regarded experiments like affirmative action as counterproductive to minorities’ best interests.

Patrick M. Dempsey

Granada Hills

Instead of worrying about the U.S. Supreme Court making better rulings on race issues, we need to recognize the problem of states’ rights. As long as some states feel the 10th Amendment gives them the right to pass laws that allow them to discriminate, they will do so.

When it comes to our rights, no state should discriminate. No matter in which state a U.S. citizen lives, we are all Americans and should be protected by federal laws.

As things stand, some states take cover under the umbrella of a 223-year-old constitutional amendment. This has to change.

Benny Wasserman

La Palma

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