He himself might not be racist, but it helps legitimise people who do it for racist reasons etc, etc.
It really doesn't do anything of the sort.
"Why have you dressed as as a harlem globetrotter and blacked up?"
"I loved the harlem globetrotters as a kid and wanted to pay homage to them"
"Why have you come to a football match as blacked up gorillas and are throwing bananas at the black players on the pitch"
"Oh we just really dislike black people and think that they shouldn't be allowed to play football with the white players"
People who are racist hold racist view and discriminate against black people based on their race. I don't know at what point you became racist for doing something that certain people decided could be interpreted as negative in some way but its ******* ridiculous. No one in their right mind would think that he is being racist by dressing as a harlem globetrotter.
Perhaps we'll have some nice Spanish fans turn up as blacked up gorillas eating bananas at the next match because it's just fancy dress and not necessarily racist. He's at best massively insensitive to racist issues.
Thats clearly completely different. This is the sort of thing that people come out with to try and prove that every single occurrence of something has to be racist because you could do something similar and it would be racist.
People can go in fancy dress without blacking up. You can buy Jamaican bobsleigh style body suits and carry round a boiled egg without blacking up for anyone to get it.
They could also go around with a sign that says "I'm dressed up as one of the Jamaican bobsleigh team" and people would know who you dressed up as. Thats irrelevant. He didn't do it in a racist manner and he didn't intend any offence by it. Quite the opposite in fact. He clearly loved the Harlem Globetrotters and wanted to dress up as one of them.
Its sad that we can't possibly have any context applied to situations that someone deems racist or sexist etc.