TV Diversity

Re “Vast Diversity Wasteland,” editorial, July 25: Shame on The Times for running such a smug editorial castigating just about everyone in the entertainment business while glowingly reporting on the NAACP’s Kweisi Mfume, who, it seems, has bought stock in the parent companies of all the networks to gain access to shareholders meetings and is calling for congressional and FCC hearings on network ownership, licensing and programming. And is threatening litigation. Unbelievable.

Last time I looked we lived in a capitalist country. It’s called a free market economy. Who is Mfume planning on suing? The networks? The government? You? Me? Someone should inform Mfume and all the other malcontents and self-perceived have-nots to write a script, write a novel, read a book, go to film school. Become a CEO of a film studio. Learn how to operate a camera. Become an apprentice. Get your foot in the door like everybody else and spend years and years having your scripts rejected and being turned down for acting parts, because that’s part of the business. And quit moaning about your lack of opportunities.

LYNN CAROL MELLOR

Santa Barbara

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I’ve followed the many Times articles regarding the lack of diversity in the fall ’99 television season. What I haven’t read is the root of the problem: the end of affirmative action, which means industries in California no longer have a compelling reason to hire minorities. Supporters of Proposition 209 vehemently assured voters that the end of affirmative action would be good for all Americans, and would not roll back hiring practices to pre-civil rights codes, as some feared. The fall ’99 television lineup belies that assurance.

If television has blatantly stopped hiring minorities, what’s happening in the private sector? Is this a signal to public and private companies that not hiring minorities is OK?

JOZIE LEE

La Palma