"I'm smart but I live in the wrong zip code" ( today's Boston Globe features a photo of a young person holding a sign saying this; in Boston, zip codes are essentially a proxy for race) is the 2021 version of "I was qualified but I didn't get the position I applied for because they had to give it to a less qualified minority" from the days when Affirmative Action was at its peak.
Today as before, the ruling class deliberately makes things such as jobs and school admissions unnecessarily scarce, and then makes people compete against each other for them along race lines in order to divide-and-rule us.
The only difference between the old divide-and-rule based on outright racial discrimination against non-whites (chattel slavery, Jim Crow, de facto racial discrimination such as the notorious bank mortgage redlining) and the newer divide-and-rule (begun with Affirmative Action) is this: The newer kind is designed to create white resentment against non-whites by telling whites they cannot have something (a job or school admission) they ought to have and would have in a just egalitarian society because--"in order to fight racial discrimination"--it must go to a non-white person instead.
And in turn, this creates black anger at whites: whenever a white person complains about the injustice they are experiencing the ruling class makes sure that non-whites perceive this as hostility toward non-whites. Whenever whites make it clear that their hostility is not toward non-whites but rather toward the ruling billionaire upper class that makes things such as jobs and school admissions unnecessarily scarce for all of the have-nots, they are censored in the mass media. This ensures that non-whites are angry at whites for being "racist."
Creating this racial division among the have-nots is the ONLY reason that Boston doesn't have enough excellent schools for ALL of its students.