People are different. Some genes are more common in some groups of people than others. Groups are different as a result. That does not mean we need to treat them differently. We need to treat everyone the same if you want true "equality" (tough in a world where everyone is different/unique though). Meaning, you ignore people's race 100% and just look at their qualifications. If this means some groups have higher percentages of getting that job than others, so be it. It's a statistic, NOT discrimination, and the people that think they are being discriminated against have the SAME chances as everyone else to improve themselves and make themselves more competitive.
Now, Affirmative Action is a weird one. You couldn't just suddenly make everyone equal after years of oppression, because we essentially pigeonholed people into a pit they couldn't escape from (rich v poor is a much bigger issue than race in my opinion). Its tough to put my thoughts into words here, but it's like if you're poor, you're kids will most likely be poor too, as it's really tough to escape from that even with hard work because you just can't afford a better education. Naturally, from being oppressed so much in the past, these groups of people were pretty poor, and would just be stuck there without any help. So I think there was a need for a stepping stone for those people to move up in the world. Problem is, people used that as a free ride for things, and I think the need has run its course, or needs to be severely reformed.
Again though, that's more of a monetary status thing rather than a race thing, which boils down to education, not what jobs you get. I think if education was better, and there were more opportunities for poor people to afford college, there would be absolutely no need for hiring quotas in the workplace.
