Abby Thernstrom has written this piece for the National Review ($) on alternative voting remedies in voting rights suits. A snippet:

It’s a nice theory: proportional-representation systems’ encouraging more black voters to define themselves by qualities other than race. Fewer Eric Holders (“I am the black U.S.Attorney”) and more Ward Connerlys. But it’s unlikely to happen.
More probable is a heightened emphasis on race by black candidates who depend on black voters’ thinking about racial identity as Holder does – and even more stress on the importance of race by DOJ attorneys who have long assessed the level of black representation by counting blacks in elected office. In this case, we will be stuck with race-drenched politics into the indefinite future.
Michael Carvin, one of the nation’s foremost voting-rights litigators, puts the point well: “Cumulative voting and limited voting enshrine forever race-based legislative seats. Blacks and Hispanics will not see themselves as part of an integrated whole and vote accordingly. There will be color-coded voting into the future as far as the eye can see.”