But you're right, overt racism was rare. The left is to blame.
I was thinking the same thing before you even said it. Because society could have been having all these race wars much sooner but back then it was taboo to really openly talk about race. "Race? I don't see race". We all saw race but it was the trend to pretend you didn't. And it was flawed but it was much better.
Then... at least here in the US, Obama came along and it became "let's talk about race". Before it was "let's NOT talk about race". Instead it became "let's talk about race," "let's keep talking about race", "let's keep talking about race" and now seemingly a million years later we're still talking about it. The result is being bogged down in endless race wars.
This is all part of a conspiracy against us the ordinary people. We can never work together and act as one body because we all have fight endless race and gender wars.
The existence of hell is not only justified but necessary. We are run by such evil people, clearly they deserve it.
edit: to be fair, Trump also played a big role in all this as well... Obama from the left and Trump from the right