Gospel is absolutely right though. A lot of the anti-AA is about how unfair it is to Asians (until our colleges consist of nothing but Asians). Give some kid who managed impressive outcomes from nothing in the inner-city (but not as good as those from middle-upper class homes/neighborhoods) and you cry foul. You ignore potential, adversity, and intensity while being over fixated on race and standardized test scores.
The problem here is the idea that it helps those in the inner city is deception. The problem is it's treated as if it's a normal distribution, but it's not. AA makes it easy for those who would already have made it, doesn't help those it's supposed to help, but it makes the mean and median look right--pay no attention to the fact it's a bimodal distribution.
Cut the crap and admit the only consistent reason you're against affirmative action is because it benefits the negro.
I wouldn't say Loren is of that mindset. They see the world in a much more reduced fashion and want equal opportunity for everyone, period, as far as he can observe it. Everything that happened before isn't relevant to how they think the world should be. Wipe the slate clean. I feel his take is a bit naïve and ignores self-perpetuating issues caused by policy choices made all through out the 20th century. But I don't think Loren is against anything because of race.
Every time Black people gain even a sliver of policy relief, the same script rolls out. Suddenly it’s not about fixing injustice, it’s about
who benefited, “the wrong people,” “token success stories,” “cream-skimming,” or now, dressed up in math, “bimodal distributions.” Then, right on cue, comes the clean-slate talk:
wipe it all away and start fresh.
That language has been the go‑to smoke screen for decades. It lets people sound objective while dodging the uncomfortable truth: they’re less interested in making the policy work than they are in making sure it goes away.
And I’m not pulling that out of thin air. Look at what Loren actually said: “it doesn’t help those it’s supposed to help.” Who
are those people in his mind? Because the data says it
did help a lot of Black and brown folks, just not every single one. When the standard shifts from “does it help?” to “does it perfectly fix every layer of inequality?” the answer will always be “no,” and that becomes a permanent excuse to roll it back.
So yeah, to me that sounds like a polite way of saying “I don’t want these policies at all.” Maybe Loren sincerely means “I prefer class‑based solutions,” but that hasn’t been how these arguments historically play out. That’s why I called it out, because that framing has been a reliable tell for something deeper. If it’s not about race, then I’d love to hear him say what
exactly he thinks the
solution should be other than just tearing it down.
If the complaint is that Affirmative Action doesn’t help the right people, why is the answer always to abolish it? Why not come up with a policy that actually improves it instead of throwing the whole thing away? If the real concern is outcomes, then fixing it should matter more than killing it.
And as far as this class/data approach. A poor white kid and a poor Black kid do not enter the world with the same set of obstacles. Even middle‑class Black families still face redlining, over‑policing, and school funding disparities. Poverty fades if you earn money; racism follows you into every income bracket.
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