Imagine you are the best person for a job or some other opportunity which brings with it benefits. Yet you are told that another person ends up being selected, not because they are necessarily better than you but purely on the grounds of their race or gender. Surely, according to the merit principle this is highly unfair!
While to you as the person who is losing out, it is a case of one individual competing against another, what is actually happening is that both you and your successful competitor are being treated as members of a social group. Furthermore, on the face of it, the situation concerns the here and now but looked again in its historical context, it becomes clear that the past is being used to influence the present.
Obama favours women journalists over men
At his final 2014 White House press conference, the US President made a deliberate decision to call only female reporters for questions. I guess the male journalists present thought this to be very unfair. Surely, everyone should be given an ‘equal’ chance to grill the President! But then we find out that the reporters selected on this occasion were those who had never had such an opportunity to ask Obama questions since his election two years ago (and they happened to be all women).