John McWhorter: The Neoracists
The OP was flagged to death yesterday, and this is an attempt to recreate a comment I couldn&#x27;t submit.<p>&gt; Black students must be admitted to schools via adjusted grade and test score standards to ensure a representative number of them and foster a diversity of views in classrooms. But it is racist to assume a black student was admitted to a school via racial preferences, and racist to expect them to represent the “diverse” view in classroom discussions.<p>I don&#x27;t think this is the contradiction that he presents it as.  I understand affirmative action to be an attempt to ameliorate the effects of unjust generational racism.  It would undermine that goal to <i>not</i> have a taboo about &quot;assume[ing] a black student was admitted to a school via racial preferences,&quot; because it would just maintain some of that racism in a different form.  Both affirmative action and the taboo are interlocking efforts towards the same goal.<p>Some might object and say you have obviate the need for that taboo by just not having affirmative action, but the problem with that is that it might take orders of magnitude longer to wash away the effects of the unjust generational racism in the area in question.