The age of minorities

[Greyblades]

As an ideal, you are completely correct.

However, the argument for special protection or preferred treatment for various "out-groups" is not solely about "catching up" for past mistreatment. The better arguments put forward by (at least the smarter ones among) those favoring such special efforts center on the continued institutional prejudice embodied by rules, regulations, and others aspects of the bureaucracy and the laws that are an integral part of the polity in question. The idea here is that these 'legacy' elements of the current system as it is will perpetuate the mistreatment even with no active efforts to discriminate on the part of those currently in the "in group." Thus the special treatment is needed to rebalance the playing field itself before reverting to an "each evaluated on their merits" system.

What say you to this line of argument?

A) Any plan of action that ignores the principle of innocent until proven guilty is unconscionable for a society that holds the values that make this line of thought relevant. If you cannot prove wrongdoing there is nothing to rectify, if you can prove it any retribution is for the courts to decide, not the government. Without proof you would be acting on what we call conspiracy theories, I believe that such things are something of a contentious issue at the moment.

B) Define level playing field; Equality of opportunity demands that individual benefit from the same level of support from the government as the majority. If an individual recieves this support and performs below average; unless they can prove outside hinderance the responsibility for thier underperfoming is soley down to them.

Minority status should have no bearing upon that evaluation and the only case I can identify that it would require reperations is in the case of those that were denied the support due to being born in a time where that support was available to the majority but not the minority.

For example I would agree that those adult blacks who were denied basic education due to being born before it was provided by the state should be given free access to an equivalent adult course that would provide the same qualification, though in my country that would be somewhat difficult to rectify as such denied people are long dead.