When I was young I missed out on two separate internships because of melanin and gender based affirmative action to two other students who were friends - we'd been in school together since Elementary. The program director flat out told me I didn't get the internships because the program was requiring female candidates for one and Hispanic or Black candidates for the other. The two students who received the internships had lower GPAs and came from families whose income was at least three times as much as my poor, immigrant family's. To boot, one their fathers was a senior marketing manager for a well known company and the other student's parents were both lawyers. Either of those internships would have opened up doors for me that I would never have access to, whereas my friends parents could (and did later in life) make some phone calls and get a similar type of position for their kids. The instance changed the trajectory of my life in a significant way. I never had another opportunity to do something like that and got stuck in the daily grind of blue collar work for many years. Just one man's experience, but a pivotal one for me. Forgive any typos.
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