Danny ChaiSo here’s one thing with affirmative action that bothers me. Actually, not AA itself, just something that pro-AA people sometimes say. Powerful conservative blacks, ones opposed to AA, are often criticized for being against the very policies that they benefited from.
My question is, is that true? That they benefited from them? How do you know that their qualifications wouldn’t have been sufficient in and of themselves, without AA? Like Condi Rice. I dunno, her achievements and qualifications I think are pretty impressive by any standard. Isn’t it kind of cynical to assume that she wouldn’t have achieved what she did without the benefit of AA? That she had to be helped along?
And that’s what bothers me. The implication that any minority who achieved something must have been helped by AA. I’m sure it helped some minorities. But to me, that kind of cheapens the achievements of those minorities who are dope by any standard. To say that they must have needed help. I dunno. That argument that AA must have helped any minority in power, I just don’t like that.