system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Affirmative action is inarguably racist (or in broader strokes discriminatory), regardless of whether it is in fact a net positive for society (in a utilitarian or otherwise perspective), and society should fully recognize this fact and determine whether it should continue to be a practice.

Affirmative action is the theory and practice of favoring racial minorities that have historically been discriminated against, so society can, to an extent, offset the damage that has been done socially and economically to these people over generations of discrimination. Nowadays, it may also generally encompass similar movements for other minorities (women, LGBT, etc.) The two main theaters you see this practiced is in higher-level education admissions and jobs.

I concede that this practice may have net benefits for society. In fact, personally, I believe that it does. It is an important part of breaking down cycles of oppression and lack of opportunity that continually affect people for generations. In the United States, where I live, there is much historical reasoning for it too. After the Civil War, when many African slaves were freed, they still faced discrimination preventing them from getting jobs or educations to advance in society and leave their past behind. Reconstruction was an attempt by the government to even out these challenges. However, ultimately, Reconstruction failed and many blacks became stuck in a cycle of being unable to improve their standings: a good education can get you a good job, which can afford you a good living, which can allow you to live in good neighborhoods with good schools, where your children can get good educations and so forth. A system against you which prevents you from getting jobs or education can make all of this unattainable for one generation... then the next and so forth. Affirmative action can provide minorities in these situations with the opportunity to beat the odds that society has stacked over time against them, even though the institutional shackles that originally put them there (slavery, legal discrimination) are long gone.

However, regardless of its benefits, which is subjective, and can be argued for or against, affirmative action is inarguably racist. And when I say racist, I don't necessarily mean in the hostile way as in "this is an outrage, it's so racist and discriminatory", but rather in the dictionary definition where one group of people are being favored/suffering simply due to their race. I point this out because a lot of the people I've discussed this with have argued that affirmative action isn't racist because the benefits that racial minorities receive through it are offset by the discrimination they face elsewhere in life and society. Therefore, they claim, it cancels out to result in a situation where minorities have a more even playing field with everyone else.

My argument is that if society were to fully recognize the fact that affirmative action is indeed racist in the definition of the word, we as a group might be encouraged to seek more effective and universal solutions to minority disadvantages, due to the fact that systematically, affirmative action also has its pitfalls: it can't help everyone who is caught in the cycle of poverty and discrimination; it inadvertently ends up discriminating against other minorities as well, namely Asians; and lastly and perhaps most importantly, it doesn't solve the root problems of the issue and instead seeks to mitigate its effects. Because at the end of the day, how can a society that is progressing towards social equality after overcoming obstacles like slavery and legal discrimination still have institutional practices such as affirmative action?

With that out of the way, know that this post is not about whether affirmative action is beneficial for society. You could argue it is, you could argue it isn't. You could argue that it is society taking steps in the right direction, or you could argue that the only reason it exists is because of white guilt. However, in this situation, arrguing that it is good or bad as your **only** point will not change my view.
gpt
The dictionary definition of "racism" isn't "one group of people are being favored/suffering simply due to their race," but "the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others" or "discrimination or prejudice based on race" (American Heritage Dictionary). It could be argued that affirmative action is a form of discrimination (more on that later), but with respect to the other aspects of the definition, not only is affirmative action not racist, it's explicitly *anti*\-racist. That is:

* Its pupose is to compensate for generations of past and present workplace and academic discrimination based on alleged racial differences and alleged white superiority.
* It's meant to counteract the effects of racial prejudice by forcing employers and admissions departments to consider candidates who might otherwise be disqualified by biased criteria.

Is it discrimination, in the sense of treating people differently based on arbitrary distinctions? In the most technical and literal sense, yes. But to characterize this kind of discrimination as "racism," you have to look at it in the context of the entire history of race in the United States. To wit:

* For all but the most recent decades of its history, America has operated under a de facto racial caste system, with "white" Americans on top. Admission to "whiteness" meant being granted the privileges of this status; exclusion from "whiteness" meant being subjected to inferior treatment, fewer opportunities and, often, outright abuse.
* There has *never* been a time in American history when any other group had the ability to deny social approval, economic opportunities or the protection of the law to white Americans. Even affirmative action can only exist because a large enough subset of white Americans has given its blessing to the concept. It isn't and never has been something imposed on whites by nonwhites.
* Racism isn't simple bigotry. It's the creation of entire systems of exploitation and abuse (political, social, economic, educational) *motivated* by bigotry. Affirmative action is a step toward the dismantlement of those systems, not a step toward creating an alternative set. In no way is affirmative action motivated by a belief in the inferiority of whites, or in a desire to deny them opportunities.

So yes, it's discrimination, it's even racial discrimination, but it's not *racist* discrimination. And given the facts above, while we usually take for granted that discrimination is unfair, we have to ask whether it might in fact be a case of *fair* discrimination.

In support of this hypothesis, let me give you a scenario: Say you've been systematically screwed on your paychecks for months. Every single check you've received since you began working has been $40 short of what you actually earned. You've repeatedly brought this fact to your superiors' attention, and eventually, they finally acknowledge it.

Are you going to be satisfied with their assurance that every paycheck you receive from now on will include your full earnings? Of course not! You're going to expect your back pay, and if you took the matter to court, you'd be entitled to claim it.

Similarly, suppose that you'd applied for a number of promotions for which you were fully qualified, in many cases more qualified than your fellow applicants, and you were passed up every time. Your superiors have finally acknowledged it, and the next time a promotion comes up, they say, your qualifications will be evaluated neutrally alongside your fellow applicants' qualifications.

Is this good enough, given all the opportunities you've been denied? No! You'd have every right to say it's *your* turn to receive a promotion, given all the ones you were passed over for, and your fellow applicants will just have to wait for another to come along.

Metaphorically speaking, white Americans have been "sued" for systematically denying economic and academic opportunities to other groups on the basis of race, and the court of history has found us liable. Affirmative action is the form in which we're paying compensatory damages to the groups we've discriminated against in the past. So while it may be literally true that affirmative action is a form of discrimination, it's simultaneously a remedy for past discrimination that was wholly racist in both intent and effect, and that caused a whole lot more damage to a whole lot more people. And since affirmative action can't exist without white Americans' consent, it can't be honestly construed as an instance of racist discrimination by other groups against whites.

You might argue that while white America as a whole may be guilty, *individual* white Americans may not have done anything wrong and thus don't deserve to have anything taken away from them. Hey, I've got this really nice watch! I'll sell it to you for $300. Don't ask where it came from. Oops, turns out it's hot. Did you steal it? No! You paid for it, fair and square! Nevertheless, that watch is stolen goods. You're not entitled to keep it, even though someone else stole it. Them's the breaks.

Whether we like it or not, white Americans, *as a whole*, enjoy a certain amount of wealth, status and opportunity that came at the expense of other groups who were discriminated against. We didn't steal them, but they were stolen, and so we're obliged to give a small measure of them up in the name of justice.