[monoideism]

> When the other person is just as educated, or smart, or capable, or sometimes they may be even better, you pull out this card which is by definition impossible to fight. You can't reasonably change them. So some people will keep working to make these still "a thing", something they can always use to get an edge they don't deserve.

This could also be a 100% accurate description of affirmative action.

[buran77]

Of course at first sight "affirmative action" has a similar effect and taken to the extreme it can have just as many negative consequences. But it also depends on how narrow your view of what's happening is, how far you "zoom in". The intention of reasonable affirmative action is vastly different and yes, that matters.

If you take a narrow enough view, a criminal being locked up is no different from a person being kidnapped. Someone is deprived of liberty. A criminal taking money from the victim is no different from a victim taking back money from the criminal. Someone is taking money from someone else. If you take a step back you see a different story.

To the point, if you got a job purely based on such advantages as gender or skin color, then the fact that it's taken away via affirmative action is not as much discrimination as it is fixing an error. The devil's in the details.

[monoideism]

> To the point, if you got a job purely based on such advantages as gender or skin color,

But even if someone did get a job based solely on their skin color or gender (increasingly rare in the US), there's no guarantee or even likelihood that the next random person who loses a job because of affirmative action ever got one because of his/her skin color.

To take the most obvious example, what if the losing party is just entering the workforce? How are they guilty, other than by their skin color?

No, you can't solve racism with racism. It only causes more ill will. It's not a popular opinion these days, but I'm quite sure it won't help us attain a more just, harmonious society. Only firmly rejecting all forms of racism will get us there.

In any case, it's increasingly clear these days that attaining a racially harmonious society is no longer an objective for many folks. It's all a power play, for themselves and their political or identity group.

The past 5-10 years have been utterly discouraging for someone who hoped we could move past racial thinking as a society. I was wrong to be hopeful, for a variety of reasons now clear to me.