My wife is a senior HR manager for a fortune 500 company, and while she doesn't do any hiring anymore, she still tells me of how many preferred workers they have to pass up because of AA.
I get to hear a lot of her work problems (lucky me) and a few months ago she was lamenting a situation they had with a gay, black, near-retirement age worker whose performance was so horrendous that it was costing thousands of dollars and hours for the other workers to pick his slack. She said that because of his status, there was no way they could ever fire him and they just had to wait for him to retire or die.
Maybe I'm just blind or in la-la land, but I really don't think that racism or discrimination exists in the workplace very much anymore. A company wants to make money and are going to hire the best candidate for the job that will help make the company money, regardless of whether they're black, asian, a hunchback, or an alien. Then again, this isn't about giving everyone a fair shot, is it? It's all for the sake of 'diversity', whether it be diversity of race, intelligence, ability, etc.