Affirmative action on very superficial traits. White man A is not the same as white man B. Of course you're going to get backlash from 'whitey' who came from the boonies, had to work their way up and is potentially losing his chance over affirmative action against some vague 'beneficial treatment' they haven't experienced their entire life. Nor does that 'whitey' feel like they have anything in common with the rich kid who got to breeze through life into those privileged circles, regardless they share the same skin color or not.
The most astoundingly racist thing is how everyone is so eager to reduce individuals to their race, no matter their background, whether it be to victimize or villainize them. Meanwhile the corporate fatcats are chilling on the side while the next generation gets to carry the burden of their shenanigans along with the losers of their own generation. Sure they are okay with it, they are nigh-on untouchable anyway.
Group A, B, and C are being targeted by Group D.
We have a solution that helps Group A.
Group B and C are still suffering.
You can:
1) Help Group B.
2) Help Group C.
3) Help Group D by removing the help provided to Group A.
We went with 3.
> The most astoundingly racist thing is how everyone is so eager to reduce individuals to their race, no matter their background, whether it be to victimize or villainize them.
I don't see this happening, at least not in my bubble, which is admittedly on the left.
It could be happening with centrists or people on the right, but I'd be an outsider looking in, which makes my pov biased and unreliable, so I can't say.
"Everyone has the same opportunity" can be technically true but still practically false. e.g., If you want to disagree with me, you can, but you have to reply 1 minute after I post this comment. But a reply any time other than exactly 1 minute after supports me.
Everyone has the same opportunity here: to express their support or disagreement.
If you think that is bad, wait until you find out what the previous guy did.
Here is the problem we are in.
We are playing a game of Monopoly (or some other game, like Ticket to Ride). I go first. I get 100 turns, free. You get to sit there and wait. Finally, you say, hey, that's not fair, and I go okay, and now I let you go. But when I do, you play by different rules, and it takes another 100 turns for you to finally convince me to let you play by the same rules.
Now, we go to turn 201, and you look at a board that I control and I say to you "you can't complain, it's equal now".
So, the point of all this is: how do we move past that? How do we improve the situation for you? How do we make it equitable? That's the question, and the answer for some was affirmative action.
And to be clear, nowhere did I ever see a case where a white person was denied a college because their spot was taken up by a minority. Every one of those schools had other ways of letting students in that ignored academic merit (such as Legacies).
The flip side of the coin is believing our country should not fix the mistakes of its past. Bad things happened, and we should not strive to repair the damage.
Of course, the final belief is that our country didn't do anything wrong, but then at that point, our conversation is over as I have no desire to engage with things that believe that.