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Affirmative action was designed to recognize the uniquely difficult journey of African-Americans. This policy was justifiable and understandable, even to those who came from white cultural groups that had also suffered in socio-economic terms from the Civil War and its aftermath.

I don't know what this definition of affirmative action is for some.

Affirmative action has a negative effect on our society when it means counting us like so many beans and dividing us into separate piles.

Affirmative action is an effort to include every aspect of society in the decision making.

And nothing embittered me, which is important, because I think ethnic people and women in this society can end up being embittered because of the lack of affirmative action, you know.

I don't know how one would define an affirmative-action hire. I ultimately do not know what role race played in my hiring.

Affirmative action is the most important antidiscrimination technique ever instituted in the United States. It is the one tool that has had a demonstrable effect on discrimination... Affirmative action, by all statistical measures, has been the central ingredient to the creation of the black middle class.

The theory of cultural bias... is the idea that a culture is based on a particular form of organization. It can't be transplanted except to another variant of that organization.