>It's a common but I think unhelpful observation that americans make racism worse by focusing on race more.

Common, unhelpful, and selective. The whole idea of "race" is arbitrary and meaningless. Ask someone to come up with a specific definition of who qualifies as a member of what "race", and they won't be able to, because it doesn't exist. Obviously we are saddled with the barbaric vestiges of the past, but that doesn't mean that we are forced to carry them on, codify them, and pretend like they have any sort of objective meaning. All the identify fetishists, racialists, and those who insist on codifying the nonsensical racial nonsense from the past are part of the problem, do a disservice to society and prevent us from moving forward.