Ah I see. Well I agree that things won't end well on their own through sheer inertia, and even if they would, I see no reason to sit and wait until that day eventaully arrives. But I'm not sure I think that's the reason that many ordinary people object.

The people who I've spoken to about this, some of whom are in the comments of this article, feel like they're being unfairly penalised for the sins of their ancestors. And there's a grain of truth in that. And because human beings are selfish, they need it carefully pointed out to them that the sins of theior ancestors unfairly penalised black people an a scale almost unimaginably worse, for centuries.

There's also a very clear fear that what black people want isn't justice but revenge. They think that sooner or later, black people will be the ones in charge, and they're afraid that the same thing is going to happen to them as happened to us.

But as far as the practicality piece, that's why I said I think there's an important conversation to be had about what success looks like. I think the goal of equity being pushed by people like Kendi is not only unsustainable but wrong. There's no reason to imagine that all things being equal, we'd see a perfectly even distribution of black people in every field.

I see the true goal as equality of opportunity, which is very difficult to measure and comprises many different factors, and will require some deliberate tinkering in the near term. But the long term goal in my opinion should absolutely be to move past measures like this. We're just not there yet.