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Not only do they have to excel, but they have to excel above and beyond even the high achievers from the remainder of the mainstream students in order to prove that they did not get where they were because of someone's sick sense of tokenism.

And then the sad thing is that even when they do graduate and start practicing a profession, they are continually handicapped by the stigma of affirmative action. For example, knowing what I do about affirmative action in graduate and professional schools, I doubt very much if I would ever hire a black doctor or a black lawyer. I don't like that state of affairs, but when your life or property is on the line, and you need the best doctor or the best lawyer, you can't risk that the person whom you've hired is not among the best and brightest.

This truly saddens me. I'm sure that all liberals (and maybe even some FReepers would cite my personal feelings as proof that I am a racist. I have these feelings because of my experiences with affirmative action, and wish that my experiences had been different. But as long as we have such discriminatory policies that prevent true competition and don't require people of color to meet the same standards as white folks, I and other good people like me will continue to view black professionals with a certain degree of caution and have reservations about hiring one for our personal needs. Like I said, it makes me sad.

But, Henrietta, although the existence of affirmative action programs promotes racist stereotypes, I don't think the programs themselves work the way so many people think they do. Race is only one qualifier for admission into a university. For example, maybe a person has lower SAT scores, but he/she gave a better interview, or wrote a compelling essay for the college application. And, remember, white women supposedly benefit from affirmative action, too, and other "groups" like Asian-Americans and Hispanics also qualify under AA programs. But - alas! - only African-Americans get stereotyped. IMHO, before we abolish AA programs, we should stop state and federal funding of schools altogether. Let people pay for their own educations and go to different schools, if they like.

How true. Even one of our black clients was insistent about hiring a white lawyer because she did not have a very high opinion of black professionals. What a burden the high-performing black person has to bear. They can't hardly win for losing. parsy.