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This is separate from tuition assistance, which they may also be eligible for. Unfortunately, the descendants of slaves are not only financially affected, but academically affected. Early interventions like reading to your young children and helping them with homework are reduced for the descendants of enslaved people, likely due to a combination of less favorable working conditions and the reduced academic involvement of their own parents.

This is an anecdote, but it’s stuck with me: I used to work in a call center and once spoke to a man my father’s age, whose grandparents (like my father’s) were sharecroppers. That man was not literate enough to write down a claim number, so he put his daughter on. I asked (impolitely, but I was too curious), and she explained that the majority of teachers in 1950s and 60s Alabama just didn’t care if a poor black kid learned to read. My father has a master’s degree. There’s no way this man’s daughter was read to as much as I was or given as much academic help as I was. That’s happening on a huge scale, and a lot of people will consider only my father’s merit, not this man’s consistent, overwhelming disadvantage.

This is the argument always used to oppose equity programs. “Why not just use merit instead of skin color” leads to overwhelming discrimination. African American students don’t measure up as highly as white students on tests that have been historically designed with the explicit purpose of discrimination. It’s not a level playing field. How will you determine the content of someone’s character for college admissions? How about we use standardized tests? https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/racist-beginnings-standardized-testing because those are fucked my guy

You’re conflating the issue of proving ancestry with merit based admissions, either intentionally or because you don’t realize just how fucked up that is. Every black person in the US is historically an immigrant, just like every non-indigenous person is. Most black Americans’ ancestors did not come here by choice. So when you conflate “use discriminatory standardized tests” with “how is a black American supposed to prove their ancestors were slaves” you’re being extremely racist. Stop complaining about whataboutism and think about the arguments you’re making for more than five seconds. This law is intended to bypass the progress that the right wing has made in making race based admissions standards illegal, not to harm white kids.