What does intention have to do with it? Are you saying that if you unintentionally seek people based on criteria like race or gender you're more likely to find the best candidates? Affirmative action, as you call it, is an intentional effort to overcome the sort of unintentional bias that tptacek described.
By the way, one reason people react strongly to objections like yours is that a very direct interpretation is that you believe the distribution of people in high status jobs actually does accurately reflect differences based on race and gender. Not sure if you intended that.
By the way, one reason people react strongly to objections like yours is that a very direct interpretation is that you believe the distribution of people in high status jobs actually does accurately reflect differences based on race and gender. Not sure if you intended that.