How Social Networks Drive Black Unemployment

"The interviewees in my study who were most angry about affirmative action were those who had relatively fewer marketable skills — and were therefore most dependent on getting an inside edge for the best jobs."

Completely wrong. She got so close and then completely missed it.

Poor white people exist. They're the ones who are most scared of affirmative action not because they are losing an inside edge, but because they don't have one. If you're a rich, prep-school attending legacy to Harvard, you can easily support affirmative action policies because you know your own admission is safe. If you're a blue-collar white kid, you know you're the one who is losing your seat for the affirmative action admission.

Affirmative action doesn't scare you if you have an inside edge. Your Uncle/Mother/frat-brother/whoever is still going to fast-track you. But if you don't have any of those connections and privilege, then affirmative action is terrifying. You see yourself as being penalized for an advantage that you don't actually have, it's not leveling the playing field it's putting you at a disadvantage. That's why those with relatively fewer marketable skills are against it.

Notwithstanding my feeling of being link baited by the term "social networks", the points in this article are what I've come to assume & expect. Even if you take out the race angle, most would agree that good professional network is all but necessary to climb the ladder of success. Factor race back in, and it's easy to see how under representation or even discrimination play their part.