> 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.
What if the classism problem is a significant cause of the racism problem? Race and class correlate, so if someone has a problem with a particular class they are going to learn to associate certain races with that class, and their classism issue becomes a racism issue to the outside observer.
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.