I give the author the benefit of the doubt as well, and I hate name calling, but it won't stop me saying the text is problematic. Calling the text racist isn't the same thing as calling the author a racist, IMO.

"racist" is also more than name calling. It's much too dangerous to remove the tools of criticising racism from people because we fear they are uncivil. I believe we can talk about racism in a civil way, in any case.

Thank you for the discussion as well! :)