The interesting thing about affirmative action (well, to me) is the

motivations of those who promote it. Those motivations are multiple, of

course, the proportion of components varying from one individual to another.

Surely, though, one of them is ingroup moral one-upmanship. I leave aside

the question of how much white liberals, as a group, actually care about the

welfare of poor black people. It seems indisputable to me, though, that

they care very much indeed about asserting their moral superiority over

other white people — you know, those coarse rednecks, those flint-faced

fiscal conservatives, those dimwitted, “easily led” evangelicals, etc.

At this point I could let loose the dark side of my nature and declare that

nobody in any race group really gives a fig about anyone in any other; they

just want to assert superiority over their own in-group peers. I could,

but of course I am not going to.