From [HERE] Opponents of affirmative action tell the Court that policies to uplift historically disadvantaged minorities are no longer needed in a “post-racial” America and that race-conscious policies stand in the way of the progress made since Brown. To be sure, all Americans should be proud of the enormous strides our nation has made since the days of slavery and Jim Crow. But the idea that we are “post-racial” is fiction, not fact. 

If we lived in a post-racial America, then white, Latino and black youth would be stopped by the police, arrested and incarcerated in numbers roughly proportionate to their population. If we lived in a post-racial America, banks would treat white and black families with identical incomes and credit history equally – instead of steering minority homeowners into unaffordable subprime loans. And if we lived in a post-racial America, higher education enrollment would reflect the diversity of our nation.  

These problems are not created by government classifications, or policies to uplift communities of color. They are symptoms of our continuing struggle to overcome racial divides in a nation founded on slavery and the systemic subordination of people based on the color of their skin. And they will remain intractable so long as our highest court tells us that our Constitution actually prevents our government from participating in an honest conversation about race.