African-Americans have been horribly mistreated in America. The nation’s ideals have been right — liberty and equality under the law for all — but with centuries of slavery and Jim Crow, the country fell devastatingly short of living up to them for most of its history. A huge, lasting impact of this is African-Americans are often stuck behind a moon-sized 8-ball financially — the average African-American family has accumulated a tiny fraction of the wealth of the average white family — which carries all sorts of chronic problems with it.
In light of this, the least we could do is give African-Americans a small leg up in college admissions. But such affirmative action has long been highly controversial and is now in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. And not without justification.
