White America is not waking up and has always been this way. Take the Chicago race riot of 1919. White Chicago didn't seem very race conscious before the Great Migration of southern black people.
After the Great Migration started in 1910 it didn't take long for Chicago whites to become threatened and eventually start killing people.
Then began a long period of segregation and redlining that eventually stopped or slowed with the Fair Housing Act of 1968. After that racism became more "color blind" as you described where economic privilege was used to keep neighborhoods racially divided.
Now more recently at some point white America sensed some new made up form of "Great Migration" and loss of privilege and the cycle is repeating. However this new race consciousness you describe feels like a very artificial and lazy substitute for class consciousness.
Maybe it was that way in 1919 also when wealth inequality was on the rise and would peak in 1929. Still feels like blaming race for anything in 2025 is particularly stupid.