I was once a proponent of considering that race problems are at their core class problems, since racial minorities have historical been relegated to second-class status, and a lot of the problems that plague black people emanate from their modest economic and educational means.
But I've come around more to the idea that using class as a proxy for race is way too reductive, because white people at the same socioeconomic level still have at least social advantages, and in large part employment advantages, over racial minorities who exist at the same educational/wealth level. Affirmative action was in part supposed to address this, but it's also somewhat akin to a lottery, since it applies only to certain circumstances at only certain institutions, and is itself applied unevenly based in part on both discretion and quotas.
It's a shame that the most perfect solution, true merit-based applied irrespective of demographics or special circumstance, is unavailable to us, since the acquisition of presumably agreed-upon merits is itself influenced by the social history of this country.