I have linked three examples, but there are many more. The first one is a contractual one that has not been overturned. The second and third links are under legal challenge, but it highlights that attempts are being made to create preferred rights based on skin color. The most common form of special rights are "carve outs" based on skin color or gender.

I understand the concept, that intentional discrimination to fix "past wrongs" is in the "public" interest. And I even sympathize with that line of reasoning, but I would rather see it addressed in a "non-racist" way.

I am also sensitive to how these laws are abused by minorities and women with political connections. In the past, we did business with many of the women and minority businesses around Washington, DC euphemistically referred to as the "beltway bandits". They win government contracts based on their skin color and gender and political connections, then skim off 10% for themselves and subcontract all the work to other companies like mine.

This ability is 100% tied to the fact that many government programs intentionally discriminate through racial and gender "carve outs", that do nothing to help women as a whole or blacks as a whole but does enrich a small group of politically connected blacks and woman whose families have leverage within government.

https://www.startribune.com/new-minneapolis-teacher-contract-language-disrupts-seniority-to-protect-educators-of-color/600179265?refresh=true

https://www.sba.gov/article/2023/10/24/biden-harris-administration-announces-significant-increase-lending-black-owned-small-businesses

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/oregon-cares-fund-lawsuit.html

So, let's look at two better ways to address fix past problems that avoids skin color and focuses on equality of opportunity.

First provide advantages to poor children to access education regardless of race at both the primary, secondary, and post high school level. In communities with failing schools provide access to charter schools, magnet schools, and private schools if necessary. The goal has to be that every child get access to a good education. Next, if funding is a problem and it is for poor children provide college funding assistance based on family income and not skin color. Such programs will disproportionately benefit minorities as long as minorities are disproportionately poor. But one nice feature is that it will treat all poor the same. Tiger Wood's children deserve no special treatment over a poor white child in Appalachia whose family has never attended a college. Likewise, poor inner city black children should grow up knowing that "money" will not prevent them from accessing college or vocational school.

A second approach would be to force universities and employers to determine what are the criteria that define someone that can perform at a given university or in a given job regardless of skin color. Everyone that gets through that hurdle is put into a lottery and people will be selected at random. Every child rejected will know that it was not that they were not good enough, but they were not lucky. No Asian child will think they got rejected because of their skin color and no employer will think a black applicant's education was the product of "affirmative action" but rather they were accepted to their university based on what that university established as objective criteria for success.

As someone who employed more than 100,000 people over his career, you learn that individual success is not based on who has the best resume, but on many factors that Human Resources departments have a terrible record of identifying. The more judgement you allow people in selecting people, the more discrimination creeps into the process. Do I as an employer want my payroll department to by 80% Vietnamese, my HR department to be 90% women, by accounts payable department to 70% black, etc. The answer is "no". I want a diverse workforce reflective of not the people who comprise the community (I don't control the community), but reflective of the people who apply and have the qualifications to do the job.

So, once you qualify candidates (I was also tough here and refused to allow my HR department to create crazy requirements like college degrees for jobs that had no need for them), you put the candidates into a lottery and choose one. Every applicant knows that no one had control over who to hire based on their skin color or gender.

With respect to "qualifications", as noted above unless college degrees, specific licenses, or certifications are required to perform the job, I increasingly saw them as barriers to accessing good people. Instead, I was becoming more inclined to "testing applicants" using real life examples from the work they would be doing.

So, I have given you commercial examples, like a labor contract and government examples, like racial carve outs and preferences. You can let your breathe out now.

Now how did you feel when Biden said he would pick a black woman as his VP and put a black woman on the Supreme Court? Would you have felt the same way if he said "white"? How about if he had said Asian? When is it okay in your eyes to discriminate? Does it matter if the person being discriminated against is white or a different minority?