I've changed my mind about affirmitive action

Before I opposed affirmative action; now I am cautiously in favour in some circumstances.

I used to disagree because affirmative action is unjust. It is unfair that somebody should get a job when there is someone more talented also applying (who just happens to be of the 'wrong' gender/race/colour etc).

What's changed? Well I still believe that affirmative action is unfair (unless, for example, the beneficiaries systematically under perform in job applications), but I've realised that, for me, boosting a group's self-esteem and social status trumps justice in this case.

Allow me to explain. Imagine a society where, on the whole, pink people have less education than blue people. Now imagine you are a job interviewer who has to go through lots of applications and pink people have pink names and blue people have blue names. It makes sense for the job interviewer to pay less attention to the pink applicants and their applications. This reduces pink people's chances of getting the job. Now if you are pink person in such a society deciding whether or not to go to university you might decide it is a waste of time because you are unlikely to get a much better job for your trouble. This leads to a vicious cycle where pink people are relatively less educated than blue people.

If you substitute African-American for pink and white American for blue you have the sketch of arguably a real life example. In such a case affirmative action can break this cycle by guaranteeing certain jobs to the African-Americans who get a higher education.

It is not necessarily the only way - perhaps applicant discrimination could be addressed somehow. Perhaps they are not allowed to see people's names on CVs?

However, there is a case for overriding justice and pursuing affirmative action in cases where there are self-perpetuating cycles of underachievement. What do you think?