> It's especially jarring to understand this in the context of the utterly racist "war on terror", which is just racism under cover.

Not under that much cover, just the more overt part of it directed at a different demographic than the primary foci of earlier rounds of US racism (though it provided a lot of excuse for actions directed more in line with classic US racism, and set the stage for the renaissance of more classicly directed, out-and-proud racism that has characterized the Trump era.)