I can't speak from experience about politics that far back, but I assume that race has come around as an issue in the past. But I agree that "race pimping" was ramped up by the media, especially CNN, about the time when Obama make his big
introductory speech at the 2004 DNC convention. Racial strife is always on the back burner as far as Marxist/leftist politics go (creating victim classes), but this was done to fast track Obama to the presidency. They continued through the Obama years. In preparation for the Hillary run, they ramped up the feminist victimhood propaganda. This is the coalition that the Democrats wanted to create. A coalition of victims, and first you have to convince everyone that they are a victim.
Now, almost everyone is a "victim" of straight white males (who ironically, can not be victims, per the OP article). You can't get a society any more victimhood obsessed if you tried. They have turned it up to 11. We are at maximum victimhood.