Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Firstly, you make the cool gray text appear by surrounding it in | .

Second, since the late 60s, the overall poverty rate in the US has been flat, while its fallen slightly for blacks, leaving still at about twice the poverty rate among whites. I didn't imply or even entertain that poverty has been exacerbated by AA, just that it hasn't been the fix that it was designed to be, as evidenced by the fact that it hasn't created a much more equal society, nor, according to all the evidence, a more peaceful and just society. There are a lot of complex reasons for economic disparity, none of which has been caused by AA, but that doesn't mean AA has been a net benefit to most people.

...it is an indisputable fact that regardless of educational attainment or economic status, POC will be denied jobs, promotions, racially profiled etc, based solely on the color of their skin.

Is it an indisputable fact? You should provide evidence that this occurs today. Young blacks are definitely stopped by the police far too often without cause. And I have read that resumes with names that sound black are less likely to be considered by hiring managers, but I don't know anyone in a power position that would take skin color into consideration when dealing with employees. The whole skin color argument doesn't really pass muster in a lot of ways, even in the most superficial read. Take Asians and Indians, for example. They are the two richest demographics in the US, and they are often darker than a many blacks. What we really mean by "being judged by the color of your skin" is "being judged to have an acute association with black culture", which has some negative connotations to some individuals, such as poverty and crime. Unfortunately, we use this language and it teaches young people explicitly and implicitly that something as superficial as the color of their skin matters to white people, and it doesn't. What matters are the differences in urban and suburban culture.

It sucks for the vast majority of black people, but unfortunately a small minority of blacks commit a hugely disproportionate amount of crime. And until this changes, they will always be looked on with suspicion by some other racial groups (I know we always say whites, but some Asians I know are the most fearful of blacks of anyone I've ever met). In the 2000 census, it was estimated that the murder rate was 15 times higher and the sexual assault rate was 6 times higher among blacks than whites. We can't blame this totally on society at large. There is a violent culture in the inner city that can only be dealt with internally. I have lived in my current house for 1 year, and there have been two stabbings (literally) on my front yard. One only sees that in places like Detroit.

...it is important to also remember that if one is told through subtle, cultural cues every day that they are somehow of less worth than others based on their skin-color, after awhile they will begin to believe that, and it will of course affect both their performance and their expectations for themselves.

Listening to a teenage mother call her young son every swear word in the book (including the N word) while talking to her friend about who she fucked last night isn't a subtle cultural clue. Or seeing a girl so young and small that her pregnancy caused her to walk with a cane: also not subtle. These are obviously anecdotal, but they're both things I've witnessed first hand, among lots of other incidents that would be unfathomable where I grew up. You should spend some time deep in the ghetto. Its eye opening, much moreso than a classroom. There are so many awesome people, and that's why I choose to live here, but there are some bad seeds, too. The people who were offended when Bill Cosby made those statements were probably the people who are trying hard and doing the right things feeling disparaged. The people whom he was speaking about probably didn't give a shit.

Lastly, for the record, I think that a university has a responsibility to its academic mission and nothing more. If that means racial (or any other type of) diversity, so be it. If that means test scores and grades only, so be it. There should be a lot of autonomy in public and private institutions, IMO, and there shouldn't be a one size fits all policy. My point was that diversity wasn't really the point of AA in the first place, so why hold onto that as an argument now. Say you want diversity for diversity's sake, not as part of an AA program. It belittles both programs to conflate them. Fixing the problems in America's ghettos go well beyond letting person A over person B into Harvard. It happens to be my opinion that the status quo has failed. Some new, radical solution is needed, and whatever it looks like, it needs support from the government and the citizenry, both black and white, for it to work.