[ALawPoker]

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It makes me wonder how dampened racial tension would actually be if it weren't for the state systematically seeing color and forcing its policies on us.

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So, Georgia would be way less racist, and certainly wouldn't send black kids to jail for oral sex with white kids, were it not for affirmative action?

Really?

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Durrrr, no. It's not that simple, and I made no such claim.

A harmful act (of racism) begs a certain "blowback" of harmful consequence. As long as some people identify other people as members of some "group" and act accordingly then they are engaging in racism, and racism has harmful repercussions. So, doing racist things is bad.

All instances of racism will tend to disintegrate when we stop all forms of it. When a state engages in racism it is still racism, and so it still carries the same real consequences. Maybe some business owners will resent the policies and see more reason to discriminate against prospective black employees. The state is not magic and it is still subject to natural human consequence.

Would all instances of racial tension suddenly disappear if the state's affirmative action and similar policies disappeared? Obviously not. Not immediately. But the problem is worsened and not improved when people let a state see race and factor it into their decisions.