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Comment by bitL | Hacker News Reader

As a non-american I would like to ask: did the affirmative action go too far up to the point of endangering another group? If so, what correction steps would you take?

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Affirmative action is a non issue, a straw man at best.

The plight of the working class is about free trade and reprioritizing economic policy. Union busting sent business to the South, NAFTA sent it packing.

Now even high end service jobs are at risk. A local hospital voted to unionize, and immediately afterwards the ER fired everyone and ships in visiting nurses from 400 miles away. It keeps the local labor hungry and costs down in the long term.

Affirmative Action is absolutely an issue for Asians, but I agree it doesn't really do much to white people.

As an American my impression is blue collar white working class Americans decided they'd rather give up the benefits of unionized employment in return for not having to give up the racially based pecking order.

Absolutely. We can repurpose the old quote from Winston Churchill "We had the choice between war and shame. Now we have chosen shame – we’ll get war later."

Shameful behavior was the choice of the USA's white working class: They had the choice between prosperity without racism, or immiseration with the continuance of racism. They chose the latter. They voted against pro-growth policies because those policies were promoted by a political coalition that was also committed to extending prosperity to every citizen, regardless of race.

This is a new concept to me. Do have any good references for this I could read up on?

It's called "Last Place Aversion": http://www.npr.org/2011/09/04/140116142/avoiding-last-place-...

No, enormous levels of immigration over the last twenty years. If this is affecting IT worker and medical professional wages, you know it's a sucker punch to the working class, white black native american and everyone else.

I made $12/hour as a "forklift operator" in 1993, just as a point of reference. And I doubt a modern college student could even get hired for a forklift operator-type job.

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