That's fair but it's also worth acknowledging that a lot of the old Boomers who were raised by racist-as-f parents grew out of the type of racism that their parents expressed but not necessarily out of racism in general.

It happens a lot where you have people who are just floored when their parents, who they insist have been progressive and open and tolerant for their whole lives, suddenly revert to statements that are wildly racist when the issue becomes a reality for them. Like say a child brings home a partner of another race.

A lot of people think of racism as just these types of "I hate people that are different from me" when in reality it's a set of base attitudes about these other people. You can learn that using slurs to refer to every person who doesn't look like you is not ok and genuinely believe and understand that on a fundamental level but if you haven't understood and worked out the base idea that that kind of racism is predicated on a level of fear of those kinds of people, you will likely retain that fear because it's an unconscious part of the more overt racism and you're going to act on it but in ways that may be a lot less overt.

Kinda, yeah.

A lot of racism in the US from white folks is fueled by a sense of grief at the loss of something imaginary. The Boomers have this rose colored reminiscence of the past as being better and as things progressed they got worse and diversity increased, so the two are related in their minds. They lost their good jobs because of deindustrialization, their communities shrank because most of them were based on long term non-viable industries, the boom-bust cycle of capitalism sped up because of the demands of a new economy. They believe they lost out on a good life in part because of societal changes and a more diverse society is an emblematic sign of that for them.

Younger racists don't have these kinds of memories to touch on which, in a sense, makes it worse. They can attach those feelings of having been robbed of something to idealized images of the past that are wholly made up based on what they want to believe was real. They're not tethered by memories of actual experiences, they can construct a fantasy world wherein they get everything they want, everything is the way they like it, then convince themselves the only reason they don't have that is multiculturalism.

It's where you get those RETVRN dorks from.

In fairness, we also have a robust right-wing media ecosystem that relentlessly hammers home this idea in pretty un-subtle ways that "they" stole your future from you. That was around historically but it was much more explicit and not as mainstream as it is now.

As long as you have people that feel aggrieved and are looking for something to blame feelings of powerlessness on that doesn't require a ton of analysis to accept, racism will be a viable option.