Women and minorities were literally enslaved for hundreds of years to the institution of the white man.
Really? I would love to explain that to the white European eunouchs that served in the harrems of the middle east. The fact is that up until the 14th century, the most common slave owners were Arabs who are not white (at least, by most definitions). In addition, black slave owners were extremely common. As a matter of fact, it still is today. Most slavery today (and it is common) occurs in African countries. Mauritania outlawed slavery just in the 1990's and it is still extremely common there. Or how about we find the ex slaves of north America? Those with some basic history knowledge will know that plenty of them (about 80% of the original population) were deported to what would soon be known as Liberia, a then US colony. These slaves did, as their first act, enslave the local black population and use the plantation methods they learned in the US (that had been abolished after the civil war) to make a profit. Slavery was not abolished until the 50's and the apartheid, one of the worst in the world, between "American" blacks and the "locals" didn't end until the 80's, when a "local" black was elected.....which resulted in 3 civil wars funded by the US....which resulted in today's utterly abhorrent situation in Liberia.
So, for MOST of history, white people were, in fact, not the majority of the slave owners. They, for sure, aren't today.
Affirmative action or "politically correct" sensibilities is a chance for a modern society to fix the mistakes of past generations and give everyone an equal chance.
I did not make any "mistake" in the past. In fact, since this is mostly a US thing, most Americans haven't either. That their grand-grand-fathers or, sometimes, even more than that, lived in a period with some segregational and, indeed, oppressive and racist laws, doesn't mean that their grand-grand children should compensate for the grand-grand children of people who were oppressed.
And, you know what? Let's accept your silly arguement and say "well, they were oppressed retroactively!". Good, so why are the ones who bear the cost of affirmative action the most East Asians? The numerical fact is that Chinese, who mostly came here as EXTREMELY poor essentially slave-labour, pay almost double to the cost of affirmative action than whites.. In fact, the Japanese faced one of the most massive discrimination campaigns in US history (yes, even worse than Jim Crow) during WW2 with the internment camps.
What does that mean? That the Chinese and Japanese aren't "human" enough? Maybe they aren't important enough as the precious precious black people you need to protect?
Or, to get back to whites, what about the Irish? Irish get to pay said shitty affirmative action programms as white Aglo-saxons. Did you know there was a massive slave trade of Irish? In fact, the late period slave trade traded more Irish than blacks. But hey, why bother about them? They were white and white people can't feel pain, right?
Since this is a big "fuck political correctness" thread, I will state my opinion, which is 100% not politically correct, I will never state it how it is in a non-internet debate, but I still think it is the truth.
The reason blacks and hispanics in the US are living shitty lives right now is not because their grandfathers were oppressed by "da man". The Chinese had the same and they progressed, sometimes within 1 generation. It is because black culture in general, and in the US specifically, is fucking shitty. It promotes thuggery, laziness. It is anti-intellectual, tribalistic and, indeed, extremely racist. Some of the most racist people you can meet in the US right now are not white, but probably black people living in bad neighbourhoods blaming everything on "crakas".
Gypsies in Europe have a similar situation. Their culture is as shitty as shitty gets. It is NOT genes because many "gypsies" intergrate into the European society and blend is as well as any other after they completely abandon their culture. But the ones that keep their culture "pure" (and many choose to) as seen as the worst scum, and rightfully so (for many reasons I won't go over here. Most that live in Europe know why). In fact, self-identifying gypsies that are intergrated are...well...non-existent. On the other hand, people with gypsy racial background are not that uncommon, even in the US.
All everyone wants is people to be treated based on merit and ability rather than status from birth.
So to have people treat people based on merit and ability rather than status from birth we should treat people based on status from birth rather than ability and merit cause liberal logic?
How do you expect that to happen if women are still being paid less for the same jobs
That is a disgusting feminist myth. I will provide a ton of citation on said myth in a below post to not over-saturate this post (that is already probably too long).
or funding for public education/healthcare/social services are garbage for poor, minority-filled districts.
Throwing money at a problem has fixed precicely nothing in the history of everything. Addressing the real issues, like the highly anti-intellectual stance of black and latino culture, would help more. But people like you would cry foul at such thing and would rather blame it on not enough "care", "money" or simply "racism" (whatever that means lately) rather than the elephant on the room.
