What I describe is fundamental polarization, arising from inherent group differences. Government sponsored policies like affirmative action can act in behalf of blacks and browns. Employment measures can steer minorities into public sector jobs, creating a minority middle-class. Pressure on the private sector can achieve much the same effect. But none of this gets at the irreducible minimum intergroup resentment.
Resentment is a two-way street.
It exists both at the top and bottom. It is as if there were a conservation of resentment principle operating. In a meritocratic culture all the resentment is from the bottom. Chopping away at the meritocratic ideal by introducing equal-outcome components like affirmative action reduces resentment in one group, shifting it to another. Race hustlers make a living by playing upon these antagonisms.