No, it’s a bad metaphor.

The correct analogy is, “Suppose you were abused by your parent; should you be allowed to establish a benefit specifically and only for the abused children of other parents?”

You and 0xDEAFBEAD answer that question no, because that benefit discriminates in your mind against all non-abused children. And against all adults, probably. I don’t know how deep the grievance mobilization goes.

I'd argue the correct analogy is "Suppose you were abused by society; should society be forced to address that abuse." But that's just me.

To make your analogy work, the benefit would be for people who weren’t personally abused, but whose parents or grandparents were abused. And yes, that would be quite odd.

The rationale for racial preferences in 2025 is not that they are a benefit to individuals who were personally harmed by racial discrimination. The institutions engaging in these practices insist that they are otherwise engaged in race blind practices. If such practices existed, DEI as we know it would be unnecessary. We could simply just enforce the existing laws in a race-blind way.

> To make your analogy work, the benefit would be for people who weren’t personally abused, but whose parents or grandparents were abused.

No, this is a consequence of your ideology, which assumes that racial discrimination ended with the Civil Rights Act and etc. (Hence “we could simply just enforce. . .”) Mine does not.

Note that the metaphor as stated by 0xDEAFBEAD, which you already said was good, did not include this additional generational gap.

It’s not just “my ideology.” The universities and corporations that practice DEI do not believe they discriminate against people in the present. They see it as a remedy for historical discrimination.

It’s also not even an ideological matter. It’s a testable fact. There’s very little evidence that universities and corporations are discriminating against non-whites/asians.

So if admission rates are below population averages, is it your contention that:

   1. Fewer minorities *want* to go to college -- what do you think causes that bias?
   2. Minorities want to go to college, but due to factors of their environment are less able to make it to college -- what do you think leads to that inability?
   3. Minorities want to go to college, and their environment is just as supportive of that goal as for white, but minorities are less capable (on average) of achieving that goal -- what are we to make of this?
   4. Some other explanation I haven't thought of?