The reason that Nikki Haley doesn't go by her birth name and makes ridiculous statements about America having never been racist is the same reason that Donald Trump is calling her by her birth name and engaging in birther attacks against her.
You cannot succeed in the Republican party without nurturing and courting racism and racists.
Progressives are constantly lecturing conservatives about how not seeing race or being post-racial or whatever actually enables racism to persist. That is such a fool's errand. They absolutely fucking know this. They absolutely know that the best way to ensure that a problem endures is to pretend it doesn't exist. They know this deeply, with every fibre of their being, and they absolutely want the problem to persist because their power existentially depends on it.
And yes, there are plenty of progressives and plenty of Democrats who also capitalize on the persistence of racism. But most of them genuinely want things to be better, even if they are cringy and opportunistic about it.