To the Editor:

Dayo Olopade’s column illustrates that segregation is alive and well in America, and will remain so as long as American liberals continue to taunt minorities who move to the wrong side of the political tracks. Rice’s appointment is only deceptive if you believe blackness is necessarily a signal for liberalism. Remove that assumption and there’s nothing misleading about the appointment at all. The Bush administration has lied to the public about many, many things, but it has indisputably been forthright about Rice’s political persuasions.

Rice’s and the Bush administration’s policies are indeed bad for blacks. But Olopade’s ghetto-ized vision of politics is worse. It feeds a crippling dilemma for black politicians: Conform to Olopade’s simplistic and extreme stereotype and thereby leave the electable/appointable mainstream, or join the mainstream and get accused of becoming an Uncle Tom. This double whammy guarantees we won’t have a black president — at least not one Olopade will accept as “truly” black — as long as Olopade and her fellow redliners are around to prevent it.

John Morley LAW ’06

Dec. 1, 2004