I first encountered the topic when I was in university in the early 2000s, and decided to focus all of my humanities requirements into Black Studies and Black L

I first encountered the topic when I was in university in the early 2000s, and decided to focus all of my humanities requirements into Black Studies and Black Literature. The professors in these departments were early adherents of the current ideology, and back then it was a lot easier to see where the ideology came from. My (admittedly shitty) take on it is that these professors benefited tremendously from race-based affirmative action policies, and gradually a set of ideas that were immune from attack and questioning evolved to justify it. The "equity" concept came from that. My favorite memory from these classes was being shouted at by a famous Black poet who was a guest speaker because I questioned her view that poor whites shouldn't be treated any differently than rich whites when it came to admissions. The level of instantaneous emotional reaction was something I had only previously seen when arguing with Biblical creationists. This was when I realized this was quasi-religious ideology that was so firmly attached to the identity of it's adherents that it rendered them incapable of properly assessing reality.