Reading this Lani Guinier op-ed from 1993 is quite the gut punch. It was published just a few weeks before Rudy Giuliani defeated David Dinkins in a close election. Rudy won thanks to his overwhelming support amongst white voters.

White voters, even white voters in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, warmed to Rudy's racialized rhetoric around "law and order." You don't say.

This was written 15 years before Barack Obama won in 2008. The majority of the people who were polled here were still alive.

"Rhetorical winks," about "law and order" and women of color being unqualified "quota queens," you say? Well, thank goodness such rhetoric isn't used anymore in our political culture. <sarcasm>

Guinier feared that if the nation didn't reckon with the legacy of slavery and racism--the problem of the color line--that the issue would eventually just explode. 23 years later, Trump narrowly won an election thanks to winning a majority of the white vote, and only that vote.

Almost 90% of the people who voted for Trump were white. That's about 56 million, out of the 62 million votes he got.
60% of Hillary's voters were white. That's about 39 million out of 65 million.
Amongst non-whites, Hillary beat Trump 39 million to 6 million.

I stumbled upon this Guinier op-ed because I was doing some desultory Sunday morning research on this question. My hunch was that it was the late 80s and early 90s when the "slavery as original sin" formulation became prominent. So far it's checking out. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1294757001717669888?s=20