Bro racism was on life support. Kanye West thought George W Bush cared deeply about black people.
Then the newspapers created the woke nonsense. Jeff Bezos and Rachel Maddow hit the button that made Colin Kaepernick kneel during the national anthem and White America totally didn't get in a tizzy to the point the VP went to a game to performatively leave it when someone took a knee during a song.
They also absolutely did not call for heads when Kareem/Kermit knocked Benson/Tomjanovic the fuck out in separate incidents (took the Creedence tape too).
I will say that the Knicks and the rest of New York as a whole was too blown on freebase to really notice or care. LA Times got bought out, stopped their secession agenda. It could be an article about the Virgin of Guadalupe being found in some Texan's cow pasture and, trust me, they would work secession into it. Subtly but it would be there.
Obviously there is no real money in the racism agenda because the WSJ DGAF for a long time.
Also, weren't Rodney King and the OJ trial around this time? That'd account for that 90s era and the drop was like the Watergate hangover drop. Then Whitey fucked it up by giving a sh!t about Kaepernick while straining for a prayer circle with Tebow.
There may be something to this graph after all. Cross-reference that with the respective average IQ in America in that same timeframe.
Good times good times.