Vivek said we hadn't been perfect as a country, that we had slavery for 160 years, and we had a Civil War fought over it. "Some people learned that later than others," he said, taking a shot at fellow GOP candidate Nikki Haley and her Civil War comments controversy, as the audience laughed. //

"The question is what do we do about it now," Ramaswamy said. He spoke about it getting small enough to "atrophy into irrelevance," comparing the question to an immune system reacting to the virus that's no longer so powerful and starting to attack the body's organs. "That's what I see happening in the country," he explained.

"Today, the best way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," Vivek declared. He thought we'd created more racism in the name of "anti-racism." "If we drive with our eyes in the rear-view mirror, we're just going to keep crashing the same car and recreating the thing we wanted to eradicate." //

The growing problem today is revenge racism. It's at the heart of everything from DEI policies to demands for reparations. This isn't about equality or even equity. It's about punishment and suffering.