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Comment by smashthepants | Hacker News Reader

The goal is defined - equality. If it mattered to you it wouldn't be a complicated concept to grasp. And just as I said in my previous comment, this is the exact sentiment that prevents the goal of equality from being reached. Just because something has never been done that doesn't mean that it can't be done. And if you and everyone who doesn't support such a policy are unwilling to participate, then you're right, it will never be achieved.

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There will always be rich, there will always be poor. That's simple economics. There has not been a society in human history that hasn't had those. Pretending that you can magically wish that away is crazy.

Our system is based on equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. If there are issues with the opportunity then we should work to fix those (like is already being done in inner cities cleaning up the drugs/pushing out gangs/preventing fatherless homes/etc). But pretending that you're going to fix those socioeconomic issues by giving preferential treatment to people based on race is just pulling other problems into the mix and is blatantly racist.

The problems were created by giving preferential treatment based on race, but the solution is to ignore race?

No one is advocating wishing anything away. If you want to focus specifically on equality of opportunity you can't do so without recognizing that race directly affects which opportunities are available to whom. Any solution that ignores that is just more of the same. And doing more of the same only extends the timeline of "when" that the original comment took issue with.

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