Affirmative Action is all about determining that a person of color, or a woman, has a better chance of getting into a school or getting a job than someone who happens to be a white (or a man).
Section 5 was written to ensure that state legislatures don't go doing EXACTLY the measures they have started doing in the past week: redetermining the number of polling stations in each district, ensuring that neighborhoods that are primarily minority in population have FEWER polling places than neighborhoods with mostly white populations, even when they have the same number of people. This is just one example of the racism that has become so inherent within the Republican/Teabilly/Conservative movement in America.
Just go check out the other bullshit these fucktards have started all over the south, sometimes within hours of the SCOTUS ruling.