Looking Out for Working-Class Whites

While the grievances of women, blacks and others frequently make headlines, working-class white people are satirized as uneducated rednecks. Journalists would never use the n-word on blacks, but mainstream pundits rarely exercise restraint when berating the white working-class. Pandering to every group in America except for working-class whites smacks of racism and snobbery.

Despite constant media lamenting about the plight of black people, they are making great strides, while working-class whites are being immiserated. Wilcox et al. wrote in 2018, “black men have made marked progress over the last half-century in reaching the upper ranks of the income ladder. Poverty among black men has dropped dramatically over the same time.”. Though more women than men are employed in America and they get the majority of graduate degrees, many people consider them to be oppressed and call for sex-based affirmative action. But it’s working-class white people who are struggling, so they may deserve class-based affirmative action. Class-based preferences can work:

In the early 2000s, four of Israel’s most selective universities began giving preferential treatment to poorer students. After analysing the academic outcomes of more than 5,000 students, the authors found noteworthy results.

If Google and many other companies are hiring people because of race and even sexual orientation, there should be no complaints if they promote diversity by hiring working-class whites. They might even bring a unique perspective. A racially diverse group of people who all studied at Harvard or Yale probably agrees on everything.