While it is true that many white men come from a background where, for any number of reasons, they are not afforded the same opportunities as, say, a white boy from Cupertino, they are still given opportunities and privilege because they were lucky enough to be born a white man. I know this first-hand because I grew up in a rural farming community in Vermont that was more than 95% white and poverty-stricken. Of course, not everyone in my community went to university, but when I did, no one questioned whether I belonged there because I was still a white man. Now that I have a doctorate and work at a big tech company, no one questions whether I belong here either. The same can not be said for a Hispanic or African American man (or even a white woman) who is in my position.

Unfortunately, an inevitable result of AA-type hiring is that everyone--including the candidates themselves--will wonder whether people hired this way are really up to snuff. You can censor, but you can't stop people from reasoning internally.

Were you part of the poverty stricken population? My experience has been poor white people are not accepted by our professional community.

No, my mother was a teacher and my father a manager at the local hospital. So while we weren't rich, we were definitely not poverty stricken either.

I cannot speak much to the experience of poor white people in the tech community, but, at least anecdotally, I know of two other people I went to high school with who also went into tech. One is still in the industry as far as I know and the other left it a few years ago. (For reference, I am in my early 30s)

I was.

Edit: and I can totally affirm that being a white man from a poor family absolutely afforded me more privilege than being a woman or a minority. I can pass as middle class by losing my accent and picking up a nice suit on the cheap.

I'm a white guy who was born into a poor, solo parent family situation. I still had privilege due to my colour. Example: no-one ever looked at me and wondered whether I was going to steal something from their shop just on the basis of my skin colour. When I went to school, no-one discouraged me from high-level achievement or assumed that I should do sports based on my colour (and where I come from, this definitely happens to people) I'm a little peeved at people dismissing their privilege just because their life wasn't perfect. That's not what privilege means.