Officials explain racism as personal heart-change rather than institutional pattern or precedent.

Evidence

It’s a lot easier to change a law than to change a human heart.” In short, born again racism is an unrecognized racism for there are no terms by which it could be recognized: no precedent, no intent, no pattern, no institutional explication. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 131

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the reader’s contact/institution gap: legal-institutional change decoupled from acknowledged discrimination. — connects to: Racism persists by being reframed as private individual acts rather than institutional inequality. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 130; Racism operates through routine practices, not only individual prejudice or formal institutions — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1473
• SEED: Angle: how ‘change the heart, not the law’ rhetoric functions as a denial mechanism across identity axes.

Broader Connections

• Racism persists by being reframed as private individual acts rather than institutional inequality. #corroborates (0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 130
• Racism operates through routine practices, not only individual prejudice or formal institutions #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1473