Amnesiacs and African Americans

There is an unavoidable irony in the confluence of the passing of Proposition 209 in the State of California (to outlaw affirmative action in favour of minorities) and the recent run of events at Texaco. Indeed, an amnesiac waking up to the American political scene around the time of the recent presidential election, say an accident victim coming out of a coma but being left with a 30 year memory lapse, might have assumed that discrimination on the grounds of race, gender or creed was a thing