The justification and rationale for race-based affirmative action is somewhat different from anything favoring people of low socioeconomic class generally. It has to do with correcting specific and massive historical wrongs in which our government was complicit, not lifting up disadvantaged people generally. Conflating the two is a little silly. If I destroy your house, you're not going to be happy if I make amends through a general program of urban renewal in your neighborhood.
A lot of people don't believe that Americans of today should be liable for the actions of Americans then. But none of us today were alive at the time America consented to the Constitution, just as none of us today were alive at the time America imported millions of blacks into slavery. Yet we are nonetheless bound by the agreement our forefathers made in 1789! The document attesting to that agreement is also the document that protected and enshrined slavery in America for several more generations. I believe we are bound by that too. I believe the government created in that document, which still exists today, is bound by the obligation created by its sanctioning of slavery just as it is bound by treaties entered into at the time or treasury bonds issued at the time.
It is of course impossible to try to remedy all the mistakes of the past. But that doesn't mean it is pointless to try and remedy any mistakes of the past. And this is a big one that still has lasting and major effects today.
A lot of people don't believe that Americans of today should be liable for the actions of Americans then. But none of us today were alive at the time America consented to the Constitution, just as none of us today were alive at the time America imported millions of blacks into slavery. Yet we are nonetheless bound by the agreement our forefathers made in 1789! The document attesting to that agreement is also the document that protected and enshrined slavery in America for several more generations. I believe we are bound by that too. I believe the government created in that document, which still exists today, is bound by the obligation created by its sanctioning of slavery just as it is bound by treaties entered into at the time or treasury bonds issued at the time.
It is of course impossible to try to remedy all the mistakes of the past. But that doesn't mean it is pointless to try and remedy any mistakes of the past. And this is a big one that still has lasting and major effects today.