I have heard people talk about how absurd individuals like Ben Shapiro could still find an audience is because they help a lot of people explain away racism. So why many Americans refuse to acknowledge racism still exist? I mean, if they feels guilty about it, then just say something not unlike "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.", then be a do-nothing purely-rhetorical reformist.
Or, in another world, why racists don't like to be called racist? I know that there have been people who were fired after it came out that they were bigots. But realistically, what is the possible negative outcome your average American racist can expect? They are forced to move to Missisipi?
One issue imo is that the liberal conception of racism is so individualistic, and any accusation of racist behavior becomes a character judgement against the accused person, causing them to lash out. This is often appropriate of course. It does make it difficult to conceptualize though, since radlibs still fall back on "understanding why I'm part of the problem" [if white] even if they love to call it "systemic" (which would mean treating racism as a social construct that both enables and results from other exploitative social constructs, rather than just a bunch of bad people who are being bad)