&gt; What bugs me about this is that the people who would have benefit from these policies, such as my ancestors, are long dead and gone.<p>The people who <i>directly</i> benefited (or suffered) from <i>de jure</i> discrimination by race in the US aren&#x27;t even dead and gone -- there are people alive today that were <i>adults</i> when those policies existed -- much less the people that indirectly benefited by way of, e.g., having an advantage (resp., disadvantage) in opportunity because their <i>parents</i>  wealth&#x2F;education&#x2F;etc. was directly influenced by those policies.