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The bankruptcy laws should be tightened. Some people employ bankruptcy as a tool while cunningly hiding their assets. The party declaring bankruptcy may later become wealthy, but the lender, who in some cases may be relatively poor, can never recoup the loss. KNUD B. PEDERSEN Margate, Fla.
You stated that the credit-card industry is extending credit to "anyone with a pulse." This is incorrect. Within the past 12 months, one bank sent three separate letters to my mother advising her that she was preapproved to open a credit-card account with a credit limit of up to $100,000. My mother died in 1989. JULIE MACLEMORE Richmond, Texas
Self-Conscious Split Reality
I had to reread Lise Funderburg's commentary on the new U.S. Census categories for race several times to make sure that it wasn't a tongue-in-cheek take on old stereotypes of African Americans and Caucasians [ESSAY, March 26]. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Funderburg actually attributed her "love of watermelon, fried foods" to her African-American ancestry and her "taste for soy milk, vanilla flavored" to her Caucasian side. Why would she connect such hackneyed, trite and superficial traits to her beautiful heritage? What about a strong sense of pride, survival or reflection? A person with the benefit of two amazing cultural heritages should describe the experience without using generalizations that are the staple of TV sitcoms. EVANGELOS J. DUKOFSKY New York City
I understand Funderburg's support of the new multicategory choice of race on the 2000 Census and the sense of freedom it may give some people who see themselves as "multiracial." But to use the term race with any sense of seriousness is a mistake. Unless one sets about deconstructing the use of race as an ideology, one cannot escape participation in the racism that produces such a term. Blackness and whiteness are words that are representative of the history of power relations in this country, and that is one thing the Census count has addressed inadequately. REBECKA RUTLEDGE St Louis, Mo.
Corrections
Robert Hughes' review of the Edouard Manet exhibit [ART, March 26] incorrectly stated that its curator is George "Maunet." The correct name is Mauner. Also, the caption for the painting Still Life with Salmon said it was from 1880; the correct date is 1866.
The story "Girlhoods Interrupted," which ran with our article on school shootings [SOCIETY, March 19], said Pennsylvania eighth-grader Elizabeth Catherine Bush was "the first female school shooter in nearly three decades." We stand corrected. On Sept. 18, 1991, a 15-year-old high school girl in Crosby, Texas, shot and killed a 17-year-old football team captain in the school cafeteria.