Re “California measure aims to avoid racial bias ban” (Jully 15): In 2020, the liberal state Legislature exploited the societal panic over George Floyd’s death by manipulating the skyrocketing emotions to try to institute racial reparations. Now, five years later, this agenda looks especially wrong and unwise, but everyone seems afraid to call it out as such. Well, the emperor has no clothes!
That modern-day descendants of slaves seven generations removed from the Civil War — in a state that never instituted slavery — should not receive cash payments or special treatment is obvious and common sense. Our federal government already instituted reparations: It’s called affirmative action, and it ran for too long (60 years). The Supreme Court and the Trump administration are ending affirmative action and all related DEI programs now. Let’s hope that they can stop this cynical attempt by the Legislature to reinstitute affirmative action in California under the guise of reparations for descendants of slavery.
— Jeffrey Ridgway, San Diego