"I hope the council gets the message."

Hard lessons

Children of color come up short again in history's rewrite

Editor, The Times:

The best response to "Seattle's school parents vindicated" [Times guest column, July 12], Kathleen Brose's sad attempt at justification [of the Supreme Court ruling against racial tiebreakers in deciding school choice], comes from Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent to the decision in the case:

"There is a cruel irony in the Chief Justice's [Roberts'] reliance on our decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the first sentence in the concluding paragraph of his opinion states: 'Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin.'

"The Chief Justice fails to note that it was only black schoolchildren who were so ordered; indeed, the history books do not tell stories of white children struggling to attend black schools. In this and other ways, the Chief Justice rewrites the history of one of this Court's most important decisions."

Justice Stevens added: "A re-writing, of course, which is crucial if you want to maintain that remedial racial classifications are precisely equivalent to racial classifications intended to subordinate a particular racial group."

Ms. Brose has left her children a legacy, but not the one she thinks.

— Larry Kimmett, Bellingham

Inexcusable lateness

In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that Washington state Initiative 350 was unconstitutional. The initiative, approved by Washington state voters in 1978 by a 2-to-1 majority, would have codified a student's right to attend his or her neighborhood school; allowed for voluntary racial transfers; and would have prohibited the mandatory racial busing of public-school students.

Now, 29 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District, has ruled 5 to 4 that it is unconstitutional to assign public-school students according to their race.

The court has not only vindicated the parents involved in this most recent case, but also the sponsors and all Washington citizens who voted for I-350.

Twenty-nine years of litigation, frustration, heartbreak, wasted valuable resources and lost educational opportunities, unnecessarily caused by the Seattle School District.

— Bob Dorse, Seattle

Comprehension suffers

English is a second language to me and thus now and then I expect to misunderstand certain statements that may appear obvious to others.

I read and reread what Kathleen Brose, of the Parents Involved in Community Schools organization, wrote [in "Seattle's school parents vindicated"] and it is obvious that she feels "vindicated" indeed, having worked so hard to make sure that all children not be "denied entrance to certain high schools because of the color of their skins."

Though I was going through similar race-relations turmoil in a land far, far away at the time, I was not in the U.S. in the '50s and during the civil-rights struggles of the '60s.

And so — and here is where the English-as-a-second-language problem may come in — were Brose's words not the ones used repeatedly during the struggle? Are Brose and Co. not deliberately throwing those words back at the struggle of those decades?

My hope is that I misunderstand as usual.

— Zenkosi Zulu, Seattle

Seattle in the dark

Paint the town rude

Regarding "We love the nightlife, but not the rowdies" [editorial, July 11]: I made a decision to buy a condo in Belltown in 2001 after renting in downtown for a year. My wife and I love urban living — except for the spillover from a few out-of-control clubs in our area.

The words "vibrant nightlife" must appear in thousands of documents in City Hall but no one has taken the trouble to define what "vibrant" is. I find it hard to believe that it includes shootings, hundreds of rowdy drunks on the streets at 2 a.m., and three hotdog stands in the 2200 block of First Avenue [open] at 2 a.m.

It is like a totally out-of-control street fair down here in the middle of the night on weekends.

My wife and I invited the entire City Council to visit our home one Saturday night in February for an event of dessert, coffee, discussion and a closing-time tour of the area. We began at 12 midnight. The only council member to come to our home was Sally Clark.

We dodged hotdog stands and loud drunks on First, and stood across from Tabella at 1:40 a.m., while two bicycle policemen and five squad cars shepherded the crowd out of and away from the club.

On her way to her car at about 2 a.m., Clark came upon a fight at the corner of Bell and Second — she was the one to call 911 to get the police to come break it up.

Thanks for speaking out about the need for the nightlife license. I hope the council gets the message.

— John Cook, Seattle

We get hammered

In "We love the nightlife, but not the rowdies," The Times says of local area clubs, "Seattle taxpayers should not have to pay part of their cost of doing business."

I couldn't help but think of those monuments to free enterprise called Safeco Field and Qwest Field.

— Jim Anderson (online reader), Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Hollywood values

The almighty duller

I find it odd that Universal Pictures and director/producer Tom Shadyac would take a highly successful movie like "Bruce Almighty," hone off all of the sharp comedy edges to make sure that it, according to them, "reflects the morals, values and habits of many millions of Americans of multiple faiths," in order to be more "inclusive and appealing to a 2-year-old, a grandparent and everyone in between" [" 'Almighty' task: to lure the faithful," Religion, July 7].

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "Evan Almighty," the biggest money loser of summer releases.

Sounds like Universal and Mr. Shadyac have made the classic mistake of building a horse by committee. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a camel.

Thank goodness the studio and director of "Knocked Up," the biggest comedy surprise and success of the summer, didn't set out to make a more family-friendly comedy — just one with an edge and whose only concern was being, well, funny.

— Steve Smith, Vashon