Affirmative Action (AA), a product of liberal Democrat thinking, contradicted the Equal rights Act, and resulted in an unnecessary irritation on the part of the one racial group that needed to erase a century-old mindset. AA was the first action of what would become a whole philosophy of politics. I don't care who invented the term, Identity Politics, but its practice was the special tool of the Democratic Party, which also originated the practice of Gerrymandering. If by Equal Rights, you actually mean racial antagonism, I lay that directly at the feet of the Democrats, who started by opposing the freeing of slaves, then opposed the Civil Rights Act, then discovered that "there's gold in them thar votes" and started pandering to the blacks for their votes. So long as they an keep the flames of victimization burning, they keep racism alive, and this fake "victim" emotion resulted in the natural reaction of racism against. Yes, there is more racism in this country now than 8 years ago.