Ah! This is an excellent point and I wish I'd made it a little clearer in the article. I'm for affirmative action programmes which preferentially select for black people, but ONLY if those black people meet the standards of whatever institution they're applying to.

There's plenty of data which suggests that hiring or admitting black people PURELY on the colour of their skin negatively impacts them because they can't keep up, are seen to be struggling, lose confidence, AND enforce the idea that black people can't cope.

Maybe my vision of affirmative action and your idea of affirmative access marry up pretty well here.

Yes, the goal isn't that we see 14% or whatever it is black people in every single field. That's ridiculous, it's that black people are given a better opportunity to take advantage of their skills. This should never be done at the expense of competence.