I've done a little searching online, and a little contemplating. White privilege is something that you never heard of when it came to the civil rights fight in the 1960's. Racism was the problem, and that's what MLK, Malcolm X, et al addressed in leading their movements and organizations. Everyone and their brother has read and heard the audio for King's "I Have a Dream" speech at least once in their lives, and how he called for blacks to be recognized by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
Fast forward a couple of generations. The civil rights fighters of both colors are now either grandparents or deceased. There is still racism in America, but a larger number of white people were raised to take King's words to heart, and take them to heart they did. Gen X gave birth to the millennials, and now you have a generation of Caucasians that legitimately do not understand why the way they were raised is still wrong, even though they do everything right when it comes to respecting others.
Any massive changes that King would hope to have wrought would only now be starting to become apparent. Changing the hearts and minds of a generation is not something that takes a year or two. The entry-level and middle men of King's time were the senior managers and CEO's of the 80's and 90's, and to some extent the first decade of the new millennium. Those who took his words to heart were only just getting their feet in the door, graduating college, and establishing themselves at that time.
However, to the black community, after 100+ years of getting shit on, that wasn't quick enough. They wanted the changes NOW!!! AA was created so that the racists still in charge could not subvert the changes that the activists of the time have made. Rather than teach successive generations that things were changing, that it would be slow, and that patience was needed, they were taught that AA was their right, and that without it they will never ascend.
Humans, by their nature, are impatient and violent. Centuries of warfare bear out this statement. These most recent generations in particular are notorious for instant gratification as opposed to learning to eat soup with a knife. What a white man of the 80's (or certain regions of the US today, like ID) would say is typical of blacks because blacks are dumb fucks, a white man of today is not going to understand because they were raised the way they should have been raised fifty years ago, while the black community ran out of patience and eventually came to unofficially declare war on those who aren't black. Witness the one reporter for the Guardian who, when covering day one of the riots, tweeted about how black business owners queued up to defend black businesses but pointed out explicitly which ones were run by the Chinese. Did the Chinese make them sit at the back of the bus? Was George Wallace from Beijing? If anything, the Chinese got a pretty raw fucking deal themselves in the race history of the nation, so why send the mob to their businesses to burn it out?
To someone who was brought up from the cradle to believe that all men are truly equal, affirmative action will look unnecessary and racist in the literal definition of the word. To someone who was taught that all the white man will do is lie, even the sincere white man is nothing but a bag of flesh that deserves to be eradicated from the face of the planet. Generational failure has ensured that King's efforts will never truly come to pass.
