I got a suggestion from my algorithm on YouTube for a mashup video of John Cena's "My Time is Now" and Eminem's "Encore/Curtain Call."
Encore was released is 2004. The song includes the following lyrics
Spoke to a generation of angry teenagers Whom, if it wasn't for rap to bridge the gap, may be raised to be racist Who may have never got to see our faces
Eminem is saying without rap, white kids would just black people. That rap gave them a reason to empathize with blacks.
The idea being blacks and other minorities are naturally empathetic and not racist, conversely white people are naturally racist and hateful.
Where does this attitude come from? It's clearly not backed by any data, because data shows white people don't tend to have high in-group preferences. Especially compared to the preferences of other racial groups.
How old are you?
The 2000s were a really different time, looking back it can seem planned (I dont think it was, but it doesnt mstter either way)
There was a HUGE push that "everyone's a little bit racist" that it wasn't a moral failing, it was a part of human nature born of a very basic preference for the familiar. But being open minded was good! Challenging your feelings about something to see if you were just rejecting the novel for no reason. Travel was fatal to bigotry because we're all mostly the same. Black America was hidden and insular. Black people were scared and wouldn't share their lives with the world, but putting a light on it would show the challenges, and everyone would be easily convinced to help them. You just needed a bit of awareness.
That's a pretty mild and easy to accept narrative. We can all work together, Black communities are suffering from historical disadvantages that have made them distrustful and insular, but the key to success is openness and trust, and when we all come together it will elevate the human conciousness.
That "everyone is a little bit racist" was the attack point. Once people accepted that, it was easy as an academic to flip the switch with "except for.." and that cascades. The programing of "everyone is a little racist" is deep, and equivocating on "racist" became the primary strategy for building the new race narrative.