re: Before all this woke stuff started several years ago, didn’t race relations seem good?

That’s because this is all an illusion. It’s falsely created, media driven fake crisis intentionally designed to destroy the country and rebuild into some communistic fairy tale la la land. It is not the fault of black Americans (other than systematically voting democrat for the last 50 years). It is the fault of their democratic overlords/ masters who keep them enslaved and use them as a weapon to perpetuate their Marxism.