> but in practice I always saw it looking for excuses as to why people who got ahead were privileged and why people who didn't were marginalized, regardless of the individual's actual circumstances.

I feel like it's easy to notice the examples where it stood out. A survey of all the actual results might (or might not!) change your opinion. That being said, it's easy to say stuff like "everyone should be treated equally!", it's slightly harder to actually mean it, and it's even harder to do something about it.

We're certainly not legislators debating a bill before us, we're on social media arguing, but it'd be nice if people complaining made some effort to think of a solution.

Not everyone should be treated equally, because not everyone behaves the same. Everyone should get the same opportunity to excel or fail, but you shouldn't treat excellence the same as failure or mediocrity.

Talking about how to encourage more excellence... now that's an interesting conversation.