11 ms·

Why? Nobody wants to think their success was the result of an unfair arbitrary advantage.

kenjackson 4y ago
And this is why the term "white privilege" sells so poorly to whites. And why CRT is attacked so vigorously. Everyone likes to think they made it on their own. The guy who inherited a multi-million dollar business thinks he has had no more real advantage than then guy who was raised in an orphanage in Uganda. While I firmly believe that this privilege exists, you just can't legislate based on it, because you'll get no support.
- HarryHirsch 4y ago
  There's white privilege in Pensiltucky? Elon Musk knows he wouldn't have made it big without family connections, but the white guy from Western Pennsylvania knows that he was up against a whole lot and made it anyway, against all odds. That's why "white privilege" sells so poorly.
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    Right, and I think generally the high status whites who profess it about whites actually don't mean themselves. They mean all those low status whites who have wrongthink. Ironically many of them live in liberal, multi-cultural cities filled with rich people who are much more high status than vast swathes of inland rural white people.
  - kenjackson 4y ago
    I agree. Let me give you another example of privilege -- being able-bodied. It doesn't seem like a privilege, because there are still obstacles you must overcome, but it's just one less obstacle. IMO, the only thing that makes "white privilege" somewhat interesting, is the extent to which the country made laws and regulations around race. If it were merely tribal preferences of liking people who were genetically closer to you, I'd view it more like being tall as a privilege. But the fact that we used the government and other legal instruments to prop one above the other gives me a certain level of discomfort that I don't have with all the other forms of privilege that exist.
    - vasco 4y ago
      What's the point of playing this privilege game? You know where this ends? Comparing intelligence and other genetic traits and it intersects with eugenics, which as we all know is a great road to start on... Sometimes I really wonder if the privilege olympics people ever took the time to think through where their logical reasoning would lead to. Ultimately we need to allow everyone to have a life with dignity while creating a system that rewards hard work. It'll never be perfect, and trying to play the "luck" / privilege game ends up in the biggest lottery of all, genetics.
  - Loocid 4y ago
    You don't think a minority in Pensiltucky might have been against even more odds on average?
    - HarryHirsch 4y ago
      A Pensiltuckian will be keenly aware of the fact, no matter where on the political spectrum they are. The distinction is really between traditional left/right and the "woke left", for want of any better term.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Musk also left South Africa at a time when race relations were boiling and South African racism against whites were heating up. So ironically anti-white racism probably contributed to Musks' rise in North American continent.
- TimTheTinker 4y ago
  "White privilege" is like a DSM-5 diagnosis. It's only brought up with a treatment (or remedy) in mind. It's intended more as a tool to bring about a particular outcome, and less as a description of a scientifically measurable reality. I don't object to the use of "white privilege" to attempt an objective description of reality. I do object to the notion that more discrimination on the basis of race is the answer. You don't solve a structure fire by adding gasoline.
  - cauthon 4y ago
    > You don't solve a structure fire by adding gasoline. Do you refuse the insurance payout after a structure fire because it'd be unfair to the neighbor whose house didn't burn down?
    - dymk 4y ago
      it would certainly be unfair to prioritize an insurance payout on the basis of skin color, to bring your analogy back into the realm of sanity
  - Test0129 4y ago
    I object to the use of "white privilege" on first principles: Interpreted literally, it implies all whites are privileged. This is categorically untrue. It encourages racism through associating an immutable trait with a negative word. "White privilege" is no more true than saying "Jewish privilege" or "Asian privilege" when referring to trends that do not reflect the whole. For the latter two one would be accused of anti-semitism or racism but for the former it's common parlance. Therefore, to be logically consistent, "white privilege" must also be racist. Associating a negative trait of a minority of a race with the entire race, is in fact, the very definition of racism. To further exemplify the point whites still hold a majority in the US. This means, by the numbers, there are many more disenfranchised whites than literally any other race. Consequently, there are more very disenfranchised whites who are probably experiencing the same, if not worse, conditions as others races. The right wing gets it wrong, the largest welfare recipient group is in fact low income whites. This makes sense when you actually look at the numbers. The entire structure of the term "white privilege" is designed first to divide and then to discourage. During the BLM riots you had white people groveling, begging for forgiveness, like this so-called "privilege" is some sort of original sin (which is how it is sold) that can only be cleansed through constant, deliberate self-flaggelation. This repentance ceremony is further promoted (and even incited) by the bigoted and racist Kendi and D'Angelo. Both suggest the only solution to this privilege is constant, deliberate, self-flaggelation. CRT is rightly criticized because being encouraged to denigrate yourself for some alleged (in reality, manufactured) original sin is simply gaslighting. No one should be made to feel this way on the basis of their skin color. It is simply the race hustlers promoting such terms to sow further division. Division among races means they cannot unite and focus on class issues. Racism, as a tool, is the perfect way to induce this division. "White privilege" is one of many examples of this racism.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  This is an argument I have with some of my more lefty friends. There are problems that have no legislative solution. I saw this as someone who has voted blue no matter who.. Sometimes the current left wing of the Dems work at cross purposes to themselves. On the one hand we need to legislate laws for everything, and on the other hand enforcing laws is discriminatory & abusive and whats a little broken windows here & there, you have to crack some eggs to make an omelette!! My favorite example is all the gun control rhetoric in NYC while at the same time the Manhattan DA announced he was not going to seek jail terms for non-violent illegal gun possession charges. "LOL nothing matters" is how it feels.
  - kenjackson 4y ago
    I think the left has fundamentally gotten crime wrong. And I say this as a strong progressive. I understand the rationale with bias in everything from the laws, to police enforcement, to the judicial system, to ability to be gainfully employed after conviction, to impact on family -- but I think it's one of those areas where getting a few constant factors wrong in our calculus made us go in the wrong direction. But that obviously is completely tangential to this article.
  - gausswho 4y ago
    What the DA said on the subject: "Two days after being sworn in, Alvin Bragg shared a memo with staff Monday noting that his office will not prosecute low-level offenses like marijuana misdemeanors, refusal to pay for public transportation fare, prostitution and resisting arrest, unless given alongside a felony charge. Instead, they would be offered a community-based diversion program." Does that sound unreasonable? When about 1 in 150 Americans are currently incarcerated? The heavy use of the crude tool of locking people up as a solution for crime is a peculiarity of the American judicial approach, in contrast to other Western nations. Certainly there are crimes that warrant it, but possession of something that hasn't caused harm may not meet the bar for this approach, when you look at how counterproductive 'corrections' like this measurably are, and the larger history of its use as a tool of prejudice, poor police work, and the profit motive of privately owned prisons. John Oliver recently put out an explanation of how bail reform is desperately needed in this country, if you're interested in learning that way. An alarming takeaway I had from it is that half a million Americans are currently in jail awaiting their case to be heard, unable to post bail. They are not convicted, only charged. Some non-zero number of them are innocent, their lives completely upended and in indefinite limbo.
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  >And this is why the term "white privilege" sells so poorly to whites. It's because the privilege is being more wealthy, not being white. If the privilege only applies to rich whites and also applies to rich Asians and blacks then it's not white privilege but simply privilege. >And why CRT is attacked so vigorously. Have you read any CRT "scholars?" I have, and they are sickening.
  - daxelrod 4y ago
    Why can't whiteness and wealthiness both be types of privilege?
    - Test0129 4y ago
      Because one does not imply the other. A minority of whites are disproportionately wealthy. Associating the trait of a minority of a group with the majority is racism. It's really that simple.
      - daxelrod 4y ago
        I'm not suggesting one implies the other. Are you saying the only advantage one could possibly have is economic? Or maybe that you'd expect all advantages and disadvantages to be reflected in wealth or lack thereof?
  - ameister14 4y ago
    I didn't think that Derrick Bell's writing was 'sickening.' Not sure who you're talking about - Crenshaw? Collins?
    - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
      Sue for one, and really the whole of "whiteness studies." I don't know if that's CRT proper, but that's what I was refering to. I read some of "the future of whiteness" and some shorter articles posted in various "communications" journals. From Sue: >Whiteness is an invisible veil that cloaks its racist deleterious effects through individuals, organizations, and society. The result is that White people are allowed to enjoy the benefits that accrue to them by virtue of their skin color. Thus, Whiteness, White supremacy, and White privilege are three interlocking forces that disguise racism so it may allow White people to oppress and harm persons of color while maintaining their individual and collective advantage and innocence. Or from another "scholar" >How can we account for the ways in which white people refuse to acknowledge their possessive investment in whiteness even as they work to increase its value everyday? We can't blame the color of our skin. It must be the content of our character. I can't find it now, but I once read a passage from one of these CRT nutjobs' work that really shed light on their insanity. It went something like >whiteness and white supremacy is not seen directly but rather is society itself. It is the tapestry we are woven of, and we are therefore blind to it. It exists even where it cannot be seen as it is the source of rather than a detail within society. They are all somewhat careful with what they say. But their effect is real. They are turning being white into an evil, one that cannot be rectified but is an irremovable stain on one's being. Of course there is this classic response: "I don't think white people are evil, just whiteness, which you are by necessity a part of because you directly contribute to it."
- orwin 4y ago
  Quick point: CRT have nothing to do with "white privilege". CRT is a subset of critical theory, which basically is a method of research in "humanities" (history, linguistics, archeology, probably others). Critical theory is a postmodernist (postmarxist?) method, also used by rightwing researchers (Furet immediatly come to mind) to improve our knowledge of certain "facts" beyond the myths our ancestors built. For example, we applied critical theory to old European cairns, and decided to do more analysis on squeletons we found in the 70s and 80. It appears that we misgendered some, and just because someone was buried with weapons did not mean it was always a man, it could also (in some, limited cases) be a female. This discovery is actually aligned with the discovery of Celtic law texts (which are very rare, as Celts were mostly an oral culture, sadly). CRT is basically the same thing, but applied with race. Its basically says "lets review this experiment/discovery from the 50, what could have been a bias of the researchers at the time". In my opinion, this shouldn't have been separated from critical theory: CRT suffer the same syndrome most of the US does, and the focus on race hide the class issues. My pet theory is that liberals kinda liked the method, but disliked the fact that it was heavily inspired by historical materialism (and carries with it the idea of classism). Taking a marxist global concept and applying it to a limited scope to avoid disturbing everything too much is basically what they did when they transformed the concept of "emancipation" into "empowerment" for feminism. Sure, short-term it works to keep everything still, at what price though.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  Most white people of course don't have multi-million dollar businesses. The real issue is that many white folk just aren't all that privileged in the first place, and once you start applying such broad generalisations to entire populations without nuance it just becomes silly, even if the generalisation is broadly true. Many people who strongly argue in favour of things like white privilege tend to be well-off, so from their experience the generalisation holds true, but they fail to realize that their experience is not universally shared and dismiss people with things like "racists" or "handbasket of deplorables", without even attempting to understand where the opposition might be coming from. The entire thing is a catastrophic failure of empathy, which is ironic because the concept of privilege is useful IMHO exactly to understand that your experience is not shared by everyone.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  Also, in a society so bent on making money, what do you want the "guy who inherited a multi-million dollar business" to do? Give it up? No. He is going to do what everyone is doing. Compete with every tool in his arsenal. And from his point of view, the competition is a whole bunch of people who inherited THEIR wealth and plenty of people MORE wealthy. Does he see himself as having a privilege compared to all of those people? Is he going to want to give up any privilege he's got? Especially if some of his competition aren't affected? I'm not saying it is right. But you'll never get them to agree.
- mcguire 4y ago
  And yet, at the same time, "at least I'm not black."
nearbuy 4y ago
Because it seems like the pro-affirmative action camp is strong. If most people are against it, who is supporting it? Last year a geophysicist, Dorian Abbot, was invited to give a lecture at MIT about some new results in climate science. His invitation was rescinded because he had once criticized affirmative action in a magazine article. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/why-latest-campus-cancellation-different/620352/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/why-latest...
- int_19h 4y ago
  It may be more helpful to look at results of recent referendums on the subject. https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Referendum_88,_Vote_on_I-1000_Affirmative_Action_Measure_(2019) https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Referendum_88,_Vote_on_I-... https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Proposition_209_Affirmative_Action_Amendment_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Pr... On one hand, it is telling that even states as culturally blue as CA and WA don't have majority in support of affirmative action. On the other hand, that is still a lot of people in support.

And this is why the term "white privilege" sells so poorly to whites. And why CRT is attacked so vigorously. Everyone likes to think they made it on their own. The guy who inherited a multi-million dollar business thinks he has had no more real advantage than then guy who was raised in an orphanage in Uganda. While I firmly believe that this privilege exists, you just can't legislate based on it, because you'll get no support.

HarryHirsch 4y ago
There's white privilege in Pensiltucky? Elon Musk knows he wouldn't have made it big without family connections, but the white guy from Western Pennsylvania knows that he was up against a whole lot and made it anyway, against all odds. That's why "white privilege" sells so poorly.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  Right, and I think generally the high status whites who profess it about whites actually don't mean themselves. They mean all those low status whites who have wrongthink. Ironically many of them live in liberal, multi-cultural cities filled with rich people who are much more high status than vast swathes of inland rural white people.
- kenjackson 4y ago
  I agree. Let me give you another example of privilege -- being able-bodied. It doesn't seem like a privilege, because there are still obstacles you must overcome, but it's just one less obstacle. IMO, the only thing that makes "white privilege" somewhat interesting, is the extent to which the country made laws and regulations around race. If it were merely tribal preferences of liking people who were genetically closer to you, I'd view it more like being tall as a privilege. But the fact that we used the government and other legal instruments to prop one above the other gives me a certain level of discomfort that I don't have with all the other forms of privilege that exist.
  - vasco 4y ago
    What's the point of playing this privilege game? You know where this ends? Comparing intelligence and other genetic traits and it intersects with eugenics, which as we all know is a great road to start on... Sometimes I really wonder if the privilege olympics people ever took the time to think through where their logical reasoning would lead to. Ultimately we need to allow everyone to have a life with dignity while creating a system that rewards hard work. It'll never be perfect, and trying to play the "luck" / privilege game ends up in the biggest lottery of all, genetics.
- Loocid 4y ago
  You don't think a minority in Pensiltucky might have been against even more odds on average?
  - HarryHirsch 4y ago
    A Pensiltuckian will be keenly aware of the fact, no matter where on the political spectrum they are. The distinction is really between traditional left/right and the "woke left", for want of any better term.
- notch656a 4y ago
  Musk also left South Africa at a time when race relations were boiling and South African racism against whites were heating up. So ironically anti-white racism probably contributed to Musks' rise in North American continent.
TimTheTinker 4y ago
"White privilege" is like a DSM-5 diagnosis. It's only brought up with a treatment (or remedy) in mind. It's intended more as a tool to bring about a particular outcome, and less as a description of a scientifically measurable reality. I don't object to the use of "white privilege" to attempt an objective description of reality. I do object to the notion that more discrimination on the basis of race is the answer. You don't solve a structure fire by adding gasoline.
- cauthon 4y ago
  > You don't solve a structure fire by adding gasoline. Do you refuse the insurance payout after a structure fire because it'd be unfair to the neighbor whose house didn't burn down?
  - dymk 4y ago
    it would certainly be unfair to prioritize an insurance payout on the basis of skin color, to bring your analogy back into the realm of sanity
- Test0129 4y ago
  I object to the use of "white privilege" on first principles: Interpreted literally, it implies all whites are privileged. This is categorically untrue. It encourages racism through associating an immutable trait with a negative word. "White privilege" is no more true than saying "Jewish privilege" or "Asian privilege" when referring to trends that do not reflect the whole. For the latter two one would be accused of anti-semitism or racism but for the former it's common parlance. Therefore, to be logically consistent, "white privilege" must also be racist. Associating a negative trait of a minority of a race with the entire race, is in fact, the very definition of racism. To further exemplify the point whites still hold a majority in the US. This means, by the numbers, there are many more disenfranchised whites than literally any other race. Consequently, there are more very disenfranchised whites who are probably experiencing the same, if not worse, conditions as others races. The right wing gets it wrong, the largest welfare recipient group is in fact low income whites. This makes sense when you actually look at the numbers. The entire structure of the term "white privilege" is designed first to divide and then to discourage. During the BLM riots you had white people groveling, begging for forgiveness, like this so-called "privilege" is some sort of original sin (which is how it is sold) that can only be cleansed through constant, deliberate self-flaggelation. This repentance ceremony is further promoted (and even incited) by the bigoted and racist Kendi and D'Angelo. Both suggest the only solution to this privilege is constant, deliberate, self-flaggelation. CRT is rightly criticized because being encouraged to denigrate yourself for some alleged (in reality, manufactured) original sin is simply gaslighting. No one should be made to feel this way on the basis of their skin color. It is simply the race hustlers promoting such terms to sow further division. Division among races means they cannot unite and focus on class issues. Racism, as a tool, is the perfect way to induce this division. "White privilege" is one of many examples of this racism.
steveBK123 4y ago
This is an argument I have with some of my more lefty friends. There are problems that have no legislative solution. I saw this as someone who has voted blue no matter who.. Sometimes the current left wing of the Dems work at cross purposes to themselves. On the one hand we need to legislate laws for everything, and on the other hand enforcing laws is discriminatory & abusive and whats a little broken windows here & there, you have to crack some eggs to make an omelette!! My favorite example is all the gun control rhetoric in NYC while at the same time the Manhattan DA announced he was not going to seek jail terms for non-violent illegal gun possession charges. "LOL nothing matters" is how it feels.
- kenjackson 4y ago
  I think the left has fundamentally gotten crime wrong. And I say this as a strong progressive. I understand the rationale with bias in everything from the laws, to police enforcement, to the judicial system, to ability to be gainfully employed after conviction, to impact on family -- but I think it's one of those areas where getting a few constant factors wrong in our calculus made us go in the wrong direction. But that obviously is completely tangential to this article.
- gausswho 4y ago
  What the DA said on the subject: "Two days after being sworn in, Alvin Bragg shared a memo with staff Monday noting that his office will not prosecute low-level offenses like marijuana misdemeanors, refusal to pay for public transportation fare, prostitution and resisting arrest, unless given alongside a felony charge. Instead, they would be offered a community-based diversion program." Does that sound unreasonable? When about 1 in 150 Americans are currently incarcerated? The heavy use of the crude tool of locking people up as a solution for crime is a peculiarity of the American judicial approach, in contrast to other Western nations. Certainly there are crimes that warrant it, but possession of something that hasn't caused harm may not meet the bar for this approach, when you look at how counterproductive 'corrections' like this measurably are, and the larger history of its use as a tool of prejudice, poor police work, and the profit motive of privately owned prisons. John Oliver recently put out an explanation of how bail reform is desperately needed in this country, if you're interested in learning that way. An alarming takeaway I had from it is that half a million Americans are currently in jail awaiting their case to be heard, unable to post bail. They are not convicted, only charged. Some non-zero number of them are innocent, their lives completely upended and in indefinite limbo.
Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
>And this is why the term "white privilege" sells so poorly to whites. It's because the privilege is being more wealthy, not being white. If the privilege only applies to rich whites and also applies to rich Asians and blacks then it's not white privilege but simply privilege. >And why CRT is attacked so vigorously. Have you read any CRT "scholars?" I have, and they are sickening.
- daxelrod 4y ago
  Why can't whiteness and wealthiness both be types of privilege?
  - Test0129 4y ago
    Because one does not imply the other. A minority of whites are disproportionately wealthy. Associating the trait of a minority of a group with the majority is racism. It's really that simple.
    - daxelrod 4y ago
      I'm not suggesting one implies the other. Are you saying the only advantage one could possibly have is economic? Or maybe that you'd expect all advantages and disadvantages to be reflected in wealth or lack thereof?
- ameister14 4y ago
  I didn't think that Derrick Bell's writing was 'sickening.' Not sure who you're talking about - Crenshaw? Collins?
  - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
    Sue for one, and really the whole of "whiteness studies." I don't know if that's CRT proper, but that's what I was refering to. I read some of "the future of whiteness" and some shorter articles posted in various "communications" journals. From Sue: >Whiteness is an invisible veil that cloaks its racist deleterious effects through individuals, organizations, and society. The result is that White people are allowed to enjoy the benefits that accrue to them by virtue of their skin color. Thus, Whiteness, White supremacy, and White privilege are three interlocking forces that disguise racism so it may allow White people to oppress and harm persons of color while maintaining their individual and collective advantage and innocence. Or from another "scholar" >How can we account for the ways in which white people refuse to acknowledge their possessive investment in whiteness even as they work to increase its value everyday? We can't blame the color of our skin. It must be the content of our character. I can't find it now, but I once read a passage from one of these CRT nutjobs' work that really shed light on their insanity. It went something like >whiteness and white supremacy is not seen directly but rather is society itself. It is the tapestry we are woven of, and we are therefore blind to it. It exists even where it cannot be seen as it is the source of rather than a detail within society. They are all somewhat careful with what they say. But their effect is real. They are turning being white into an evil, one that cannot be rectified but is an irremovable stain on one's being. Of course there is this classic response: "I don't think white people are evil, just whiteness, which you are by necessity a part of because you directly contribute to it."
orwin 4y ago
Quick point: CRT have nothing to do with "white privilege". CRT is a subset of critical theory, which basically is a method of research in "humanities" (history, linguistics, archeology, probably others). Critical theory is a postmodernist (postmarxist?) method, also used by rightwing researchers (Furet immediatly come to mind) to improve our knowledge of certain "facts" beyond the myths our ancestors built. For example, we applied critical theory to old European cairns, and decided to do more analysis on squeletons we found in the 70s and 80. It appears that we misgendered some, and just because someone was buried with weapons did not mean it was always a man, it could also (in some, limited cases) be a female. This discovery is actually aligned with the discovery of Celtic law texts (which are very rare, as Celts were mostly an oral culture, sadly). CRT is basically the same thing, but applied with race. Its basically says "lets review this experiment/discovery from the 50, what could have been a bias of the researchers at the time". In my opinion, this shouldn't have been separated from critical theory: CRT suffer the same syndrome most of the US does, and the focus on race hide the class issues. My pet theory is that liberals kinda liked the method, but disliked the fact that it was heavily inspired by historical materialism (and carries with it the idea of classism). Taking a marxist global concept and applying it to a limited scope to avoid disturbing everything too much is basically what they did when they transformed the concept of "emancipation" into "empowerment" for feminism. Sure, short-term it works to keep everything still, at what price though.
Beltalowda 4y ago
Most white people of course don't have multi-million dollar businesses. The real issue is that many white folk just aren't all that privileged in the first place, and once you start applying such broad generalisations to entire populations without nuance it just becomes silly, even if the generalisation is broadly true. Many people who strongly argue in favour of things like white privilege tend to be well-off, so from their experience the generalisation holds true, but they fail to realize that their experience is not universally shared and dismiss people with things like "racists" or "handbasket of deplorables", without even attempting to understand where the opposition might be coming from. The entire thing is a catastrophic failure of empathy, which is ironic because the concept of privilege is useful IMHO exactly to understand that your experience is not shared by everyone.
_carbyau_ 4y ago
Also, in a society so bent on making money, what do you want the "guy who inherited a multi-million dollar business" to do? Give it up? No. He is going to do what everyone is doing. Compete with every tool in his arsenal. And from his point of view, the competition is a whole bunch of people who inherited THEIR wealth and plenty of people MORE wealthy. Does he see himself as having a privilege compared to all of those people? Is he going to want to give up any privilege he's got? Especially if some of his competition aren't affected? I'm not saying it is right. But you'll never get them to agree.
mcguire 4y ago
And yet, at the same time, "at least I'm not black."

nearbuy 4y ago

Because it seems like the pro-affirmative action camp is strong. If most people are against it, who is supporting it? Last year a geophysicist, Dorian Abbot, was invited to give a lecture at MIT about some new results in climate science. His invitation was rescinded because he had once criticized affirmative action in a magazine article. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/why-latest-campus-cancellation-different/620352/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/why-latest...

int_19h 4y ago
It may be more helpful to look at results of recent referendums on the subject. https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Referendum_88,_Vote_on_I-1000_Affirmative_Action_Measure_(2019) https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Referendum_88,_Vote_on_I-... https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Proposition_209_Affirmative_Action_Amendment_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Pr... On one hand, it is telling that even states as culturally blue as CA and WA don't have majority in support of affirmative action. On the other hand, that is still a lot of people in support.