[jseliger]

it's incredibly unlikely that an academic professor of sociology would be a closet racist.

That's probably true in the sense of using racial slurs or joining the KKK or something like that, but IME of academia in grad school as an adjunct, lots of people are paternalistic or condescending—often without quite realizing that they are (which would be consistent with the original article).

Efforts to be culturally sensitive can also backfire in incredible, spectacular ways (for example: https://jakeseliger.com/2014/12/22/how-do-you-know-when-your...).