The answer is basically: America has managed to make race and socioeconomic status incredibly highly correlated, especially in its large coastal cities where ba

The answer is basically: America has managed to make race and socioeconomic status incredibly highly correlated, especially in its large coastal cities where basically all poor people are non-white. It's nothing like, for example, Northern European cities with large white working class populations. Obviously there are a huge number of poor white people in America. Mostly in the vast countryside with its small towns. And you're right that they're forgotten about a bit in this debate; certainly no one expects them ever to send their children to Harvard. I think the reason they are forgotten about in this debate is that the white educated classes feel very guilty about the terrible race-wealth correlation.