Just when I begin to think that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has escaped the gravitational pull of his party, he crashes back to earth with a thud. Grounding Kennedy this time was affirmative action. Last 
Thursday, he weighed in on the Supreme Court decision banning race-based admissions practices in higher education. So empty headed and elitist was his response that it could only have come from a liberal to the limousine born.
“‘Color-blind’ admissions tend to favor those who are already in the circle of privilege. It favors those who grew up in affluent, educated households,” Kennedy opined, adding, “Wouldn’t you like to invite in those who have been left out in the cold.” The rhetorical “you” who Kennedy addresses did not live in my Newark, New Jersey, neighborhood. In my book, Untenable: The True Story of White Ethnic Flight from America’s Cities, I explore the fate of those who actually have been left out in the cold: the white working classes of cities like Newark.
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