Figures like AOC, Kamala or Obama really make me uncomfortable.

On one hand, I know that the US is not a racist country. They have some serious historical baggage with cattle slavery and apartheid, for sure. But there is no such thing as "structural racism", as in a structurally racist institutional framework. Individuals are a different story and the existence of racist people is not the same as a racist "structure".

On the other hand, these people are the examples of "people of color" who get ahead in the US... yet they are basically White middle- and upper-class members of the elite from birth. Or most famous and rich "black" people in the entertainment industry, especially Hollywood, like Will Smith, Beyonce, etc. who look nothing like your average black person in American urban areas and are in fact of recently mixed ancestry... makes me think that it's quite possible that there is something of a racial bias somewhere, or everywhere, in those social selection mechanisms.

Although most likely it's just rich people getting richer and helping their friends get richer too.