That's the kind of mindset I'm talking about, but you're obviously quite familiar with it. People tend to forget (the ones who ever knew, that is) affirmative action was designed as a temporary remedial program. Biases were so institutionalized that women and racial minorities were widely considered to be inherently less capable than white males, and affirmative action was employed as a means to force hiring that otherwise wouldn't occur due to that bias until it was overcome, a process that would be aided by the success of the first generation of minorities HIRED by affirmative action but SUCCESSFUL on merit.

That was fifty years ago, TWO generations; it's hard to argue whatever benefits there may or may not be to affirmative action have already been realized. It's increasingly argued, with no little merit and by people from every demographic, that affirmative action has become counterproductive because successful minority members are routinely dismissed as simply the product of quotas. Take away those quotas and you take away that argument, but the fact is I simply don't think the institutionalized attitudes about inherent minority incapability exist much anymore. There are definitely cultural issues, but a lot of those may be valid; a white man from a rural slum is no more equipped to succeed than a black man from an urban one, and each is as common as the other. That's not a problem to be solved by giving either of them jobs for which their background and rearing make them completely unsuited.

The best way to solve those problems is to do something about the institutionalized cultural hobbles to success and throw away the quota crutch that's ceased to aid progress and become a hobble of its own. The best MODEL is probably professional sports, ironically already the area where integration is most often highlighted despite having occurred BEFORE (and thus without) the quota systems of the 1960s. Baseball, football and basketball all integrated just fine and minority players thrived, not because anyone put a legal gun to anyones head, but because once a few teams crossed the color line and signed non-white athletes who changed the game, other teams began a mad scramble to find more Hall of Fame players who'd previously been ignored because of their race.

That's one of the biggest modern signs that things have changed since 1960: No successful Western company will pass over an incredibly well qualified applicant simply because they're black, or female, or gay, or [whatever]. They can't afford to do that, because they know their competitors will snatch up someone like that and beat their economic brains out with them. Meanwhile, preserving quotas that were intended to end a generation ago only fosters the very ill will it was designed to eliminate; instead of white men hating non-whites and/or women because of their color or gender, they just hate them for taking away a job for which they were undeniably less qualified.