So I agree with most of what you're saying. I turned a state-funded boarding school education into a scholarship to an engineering university, and I'm acutely

So I agree with most of what you're saying. I turned a state-funded boarding school education into a scholarship to an engineering university, and I'm acutely aware of how much luck is involved in that story, and of how much would have been difficult if not impossible if my family hadn't been at least middle class to start with. We do have a very real class problem in America, exacerbated by a deep urban/rural cultural divide, and it is a disgrace how little we're talking about it. Unfortunately, we also have a very real racism problem, and I don't think it's helpful to say "the real problem is classism". The very real problems include both racism and classism. It's too hard to get into tech as a poor white man. It's too hard to get into tech as a middle class black man. For that matter, it's too hard to get into tech as a middle class white woman. And it's way, way too hard as any combination of those. In general, responding to "we have a huge racism issue" with "we actually have a huge classism issue" isn't wrong, but it isn't helpful either. It derails the conversation from a very real problem into arguing about who has it worse. And the worst part is that most of the changes that would help the racism issue would also help most of the other -isms. Blind hiring, more support for remote work, and less dependence on specific universities in hiring pipelines helps everybody. And even very targeted interventions help indirectly to the extent they erode the stereotype that only upper-middle-class 20-something white guys need apply.