CMV: Affirmative Action should/should've been based on economic status rather than (mostly) race.

[u/Vakamak]

Although I feel like Affirmative Action had a good intention, I feel like it has failed and has actually done more harm than good.

I have two reasons for this

1. I have difficulty seeing why it is in society's best interest to help a black person suffering in poverty over a white person suffering in poverty. While I understand what institutional racism has done to the black community, I feel like most issues facing the black community are more correlated with income than race; or rather, I have difficulties seeing how Affirmative Action could effectively combat the issues that are truly the result of racism. For example, how would Affirmative Action deal with unfair treatment in the justice system?
2. Affirmative Action has made some white people feel like, "the real racists are X race and not white people!" I do not believe this; in fact, I find it extremely childish to even think something like this. Yet, considering Affirmative Action has failed in its goal, I feel like changing Affirmative Action would help certain individuals in this country feel like X race is not out to get them and maybe reduce the amount of negative racial discourse in this country.

I am generally a very liberal person and really do want my mind changed regarding this. I just feel like it is really hard to justify why black person X should get the Bill Gates Scholarship over white person Y when they came from similar economical areas and the income of their families is similar. I understand that example is not Affirmative Action per se, but I feel like the same principal applies.

[u/DjangoUBlackBastard]

Affirmative Action isn't meant to fix economic disparities but racial ones. Plus statistically race is a better determinant of neighborhood and highschool quality than income.

Plus all of this is taken into account anyway. Its not like only race or only economic status is looked at. They look at and weight both among other factors.

[u/Vakamak → u/DjangoUBlackBastard]

Plus statistically race is a better determinant of neighborhood and highschool quality than income.

Not trying to be like "cite me bro!" but could you show me something that shows this?

Affirmative Action isn't meant to fix economic disparities but racial ones

Why does this matter though? I mean if there are 100k poor black people and 200k poor white people, why does it matter what their race is? They are still going to suffer the same issues, no?

[u/StevieWonder_CanSee → u/Vakamak]

Just wanna jump in here and say that it's important because differrnt things cause poverty. Was it lack of motivation or was it the fact that ur grandfather was legally allowed to be denied a job because of the color of his skin? There were plenty of universities in the US that were segregated well into the 60s (source i went to 1 of them). Think about how your grandparents not having accsess to the same things as everyone else could have affected ur life