[white rice]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (castille,)
I don't really see how today's generation of blacks/aborigines/immigrants/whoever are disadvantaged.


I'll take black people as an example (as most people here are Americans). So 200 years ago they were brought to the US as slaves, and they only got their rights 40 years ago.

Ok, so that happened. But can someone in here tell me a SINGLE black person who used to be a slave (and is alive)? I believe most black slaves are long dead, possibly 100 years ago or so? (If not than I must be in Saudi Arabia!)

So why the need for special government programmes? Isn't that saying to them, "Please, don't try hard at school, because even if you are lazy and stupid, you'll still get a job."

So basically, we are in fact encouraging black people to be lazy/stupid by rewarding them for doing that!<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

It ties in with property rights and inheritence. Slavery in the US was cross-generational. The children of slaves became slaves and the children of the masters became masters. All that work by slaves accrued into the slave owning family's coffers. There was no form of compensation for the slaves after they were freed. Most were forced into indentured servantude because they had no land and money after their 'freedom'. The Northerners, while they didn't own slaves, were just as racist.

The system began unfair and ended unfairly. Add that to the Jim Crow and Segregation laws that denied Blacks equal opportunity, how can you claim that all they had to do was work hard. They did work hard with the shit jobs, but not by choice and with no end in sight.

Personally I don't think Affirmative Action is the right way to solve things, but you can't eliminate it and pretend that the problem isn't there. Racism in the past and present means that there must to be another way in the middle.