i’m guessing you’re too young or foreign to remember what the economic landscape looked like in the 70’s/80’s early post civil rights era. there was rampant poverty in black communities, especially in the south where i’m from. affirmative action helped bring those people up from that (but didn’t finish the job - there is still rampant generational poverty). those were good government programs aimed at a more egalitarian society. sorry if that sounds ‘sketch’.