&gt; Either you believe it is okay to discriminate against someone on the basis of their skin color or you don&#x27;t.<p>In most anti-discrimination policy discussions, the question being asked is not what colour ones skin is.  It is whether the person belongs to an identifiable group that has suffered systemic prejudice.<p>The ordinary intention of anti-discrimination is to rectify past and prevent future wrongs, and in particular to break cycles of stereotype, poverty, and crime.<p>Colour of skin is incidental to the formula, being an identifiable group.  The primary consideration for preferential bias is belonging to a group that has suffered prejudice.<p>One could as readily substitute for skin colour those discriminations founded upon language, hair colour, sexual orientation, height, and body shape, among many others.  The factor itself is not an entitlement to preference; it is the history of prejudice and prospect of systemic improvement that determines suitability for discrimination.<p>The argument that white people are being discriminated against based on a formula that rectifies past wrongs and undoes future ones belies a misunderstanding of the purpose, benefit, and impact.  One may only come to this conclusion by discounting those past and future wrongs that have been committed and will continue to be committed by a system with inherent biases.