Civil Rights

It should be equal rights and opportunity across the board, but it is not. Affirmative action belies that premise. You can't undo decades of segregation and prejudice by simply pronouncing all men are now equal. The infrastructure and mindset were not in place to make it so. Subsequent affirmative action was supposed to reinforce that leveling process. When it didn't, they tweaked it by dumbing down our long-standing meritocracy system in the name of diversity.  Those proponents of ever attempting to legislate pandering instant civil rights refuse to recognize that simply in enforcing the laws of our Bill of Rights and Constitution, those so empowered in the ranks of the oppressed were making their mark, albeit handicapped, advising their oppressors that they were their equals. Since Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1872 and Johnson's 1964 civil rights legislation, the United States has moved aggressively and decidedly toward equal rights for all its citizens. Do prejudice and bias still exist in this American heterogeneous society? Of course, it does, but the passage of time and changing mindset has leveled the playing field profoundly. However, what prevails is the human condition and the ever-present malcontents and anarchists using the race card to ferment division.