What do you consider a handout? Getting into medical school with an MCAT or GPA that is deemed by you to be low? There are people of all races and ethnic groups that get into medical school with low mcat and gpas. It may seem more pronounced because of the small number of underrepresented minorities applying to medical school but there are many more asian and caucasian applicants that get in with a below 30 MCAT and below 3.6 GPA just because of the sheer number of asian and caucasian applicants versus underrepresented minorities.
In addition, MCAT and GPA do not tell the whole picture of an applicant. We can stare at numbers all we want but applicants are not only numbers. There is a story to every person and its up to the adcom to decide whether or not they believe that given the information they have that they could succeed at their medical school. GPA is arbitrary because of so many compounding factors like school difficulty, professor attitude, class composition etc. The MCAT does not tell how well a student will do in medical school. As a predictor of future success, it is a pretty weak one. That is why the interview, activities and letter of recs are used to help decide if this student is "worthy" of a seat at X medical school.
Every person who applies to medical school has the opportunity to tell the tale of their hardships and difficulties and passion. If someone is disadvantaged then they should put it, regardless of race or background. Aside from a second look for a interview at some medical schools, what handouts are minorities receiving? Being URM, like
LizzyM and other people have said, only can get you to a certain point (the interview). It is up to you to wow the interviewer and state your case for yourself. If a URM has a seat in a medical school it wasn't a seat he/she stole from anyone, they deserved the seat and worked for it.
Also, as another point, URMs are given extra consideration because we need a physician workforce that mirrors the population. People are usually more comfortable with people of their background (yes, it sucks but people are only human). We need more minority doctors to man not only the urban clinics and underrepresented area hospitals but all specialties so we could be truly representative of the population.
My 2 cents...