Affirmative Action

Is a person with a white phenotype, but of African-American heritage, entitled to benefit from Affirmative Action, even if they have been treated as a white person their entire life and have never experienced the consequences of racism?

All these people on this board giving various accounts of how they know someone who is 'white as the driven snow but has black parents' and so on, haven't really thought their well-meaning liberalism through, have they?

I'm not even doubting their accounts. I'm sure they're not lying. But I'm wondering how helpful these accounts are taken to their logical conclusion, if it means that any ostensibly white person can now claim black heritage and argue that they are the 'victim of racism' and thus entitled to Affirmative Action or other similar support.

Thus, I think it would be a lot more helpful and sensible if we just stuck to phenotypes instead of raking up distant history and claiming 1/64 Cherokee heritage (which is the usual cliché for WASPs, particularly guilty liberal WASPs, trying to claim an exotic heritage) or whatever, in order to get benefits that are designed to support people who are genuine victims of racism (i.e. people who have been treated as members of minority groups and/or have grown-up within a minority culture).