Of course the issues you raise are real, and there is a whole constellation of systemic racism issues that specifically affect black people in a unique way. But when it comes to affirmative action there's a fundamental issue that goes beyond privilege narratives:
> Or how about we don’t assume all black kids and women are diversity hires now, and maybe, I don’t know, treat each one as an individual and judge them based on the content of their character
That's a nice sentiment, but it overlooks the fact that AA introduces this doubt, the doubt is in fact real, and can't be papered over with good intentions and turning a blind eye to cause and effect. The question is whether the net good in counter-balancing other systemic racism is worth the cost. That's not an easy question to answer. Some individuals would be more than happy to take any advantage they can get, and others want to be judged purely on their individual character.
Maybe. Every once in a while we have someone I consider an AA-only hire, but they don't stick around. OK, I'll be honest, the most recent one I was wrong - even though they lacked experience, they were clearly better than the (white male) person they replaced... and they're still here so I'm happy.
I'm going to imagine a world without "AA hires". I think people still get judged based on their skin color. That's the way rascism works.
So, damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Anyway, when an incompetent colleague sticks around for years... I wish I could blame affirmative action and feel good, but nope - instead I'm going to blame management.
Hey, I'm well aware of the doubt. As an Asian male who went to an elite university, I had doubts about everybody. Black kids, Native Americans, Latinos, women... definitely AA, it goes without saying. The jocks of course got in on their ability to hit balls rather than books. And the private school lifers who've been groomed like show horses since kindergarten are merely highly polished legacy turds. But wait, I think that one white kid from Alaska only got in so the school can say they have students from all 50 states. And the guys from rural Ohio and Nebraska? You know they're the token farmers of the class. The kids whose parents were professors? Nepotism of the intelligentsia. Really, the only legitimate admits beyond suspicion were the other Asian males. Well, except the ones who were the first generation to go to college in their families. You know they got in on some sob story. And the fresh off the boat Asians? They barely speak English, so don't tell me they got 760 on the SAT verbal. Immigrants getting special treatment again. And forget all those Asians who only got in because their parents had an Ivy League fetish. They're just grinders with zero intellectual spark. Perfect for a life as some kind of joyless doctor, just as their parents always wanted.
All these elite schools should not only get rid of AA, but they should only accept Asian guys who have perfect grades and SAT test scores, hail from one of the major coastal cities, have parents who went to non-elite universities, are not athletes, play no instruments, attended public schools, are not first generation immigrants, have no bullshit "altruistic" extracurriculars, and have no disabilities. They would be the only ones who are truly academically qualified without any doubt.
If you remove that discrimination, you'll let more of them in, and regression towards the mean will kick in.
For comparison, if you have a 'rich people' club, and they let blue people in when they own more than a million dollars, and green people only when they own more than a billion dollars, the green people in the club will be richer on average.
If you change the requirement to let anyone in who owns at least two million dollars, the gap in average wealth of admitted people from either group will narrow.
It won't necessarily disappear, because the underlying distributions of wealth might be weird. For all we know, after the change the average admitted blue one might be richer than the average admitted green.
You can build some real world example using data from https://www.statista.com/statistics/201426/the-richest-peopl...
Fun fact: a club that only admits Americans owning more than 150 billion USD would be 50% African American.
Just like when you see the the son of the CEO working at the company, there's a certain probability that he didn't get in based on his performance alone.
Of course, as you suggest, there are sons of the CEO who really are the most qualified candidate for whatever job they are holding. But there's also nepotism.
The titular point of the article was that class is really where the discrimination happens nowadays. Race and gender prejudices still exist but have taken a back seat to class inequality. The article also suggests the primary driver for this--deterioration of public primary schooling. It's very easy to see how wealth can allow some families to leap over this problem.
edit: sorry it sounded like you were being sarcastic? Now I can't tell after your other comment
So, I imagine an increasing number of black people and women (or anyone else perceived as less deserving) will be seen as "friend of the boss" or "the boss is doing them a favor". Either way, those can be easily addressed and therefore better than being forever labeled as a diversity hire (aka naturally inferior).