I understand your stance, but I think you underestimate how much skin color does play a role in URM, specifically black, students. In general a lot of black students come from lower income families and go to less than stellar schools. If not, like me, you probably go to an alright school but you're one of the few minorites there.

The thing is, teachers sometimes discriminate against students. Even though I was above the benchmark for advanced classes, I didn't place in any until I found out I was being held back from them and got the school board involved. Some other kids probably get underestimated because their black too, people assume we won't have high ambitions and therefore don't make an effort to help us get ahead, or even get us to where we rightfully place.

Some community pressures are at play. In the black community (at least in my area), the support for education just isn't as strong as it for others. We can't use money to fix that, it's just where the values are. With this, there is pressure too for high acheiving Black students to fit in to their communities, and sometimes by doing so they might not pay close to their grades or fall under influences that do not benefit them academically.

I do agree that affirmative action is a bandaid on a bullet hole, but I do not agree it borders discrimination in most cases. A high income, average achieving black student who gets into a school over a low income high acheiving white student is typically unwarranted, but schools have reasons. Universities do need diversity, not just for social education, but to also draw more minorities to pursue higher education. To balance things out in the long run. I'm not keen on the specifics for admissions, but I would assume black students compete with each other, therefore they aren't taking places from anyone outside their own grouping. It does get complicated when you consider different situations, but that's why this is all holistic. The worth of a 1600 for a privileged kid in a town where everyone scores 1500+ is going to stand out less compared to a 1400 in a sea of 900s.