Why affirmative action doesn't work
I'm greatly opposed to affirmative action and in my experience those who have most defended it to me are also the most bigoted ("but you don't look Hispanic!"). Years ago I discovered Dr. Thomas Sowell's work from reading Forbes Magazine, and greatly admire him and his writing. His latest book, Affirmative Action Around the World, explores the effect of affirmative action in India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and the U.S. In a review from Commentary Magazine, Carl Cohen observes that "each nation’s experience offers a powerful lesson with respect to one particular aspect of the results produced:

• "Race preference does not wind down; it winds up. Proliferation is the rule.
  
• "The inferior performance of some ethnic groups is not always a consequence of discrimination against them
  
• "Deliberately exacerbating racial tensions for the sake of political gain—we learn from the case of Sri Lanka—promotes hatred of a kind and of a degree almost impossible to reverse
  
• "When racial balance is advanced by granting preferences that are deeply resented, diversity produces not greater racial harmony but greater racial conflict"
  

Read the review, read the book.