That's might be the laziest suggestion I've ever seen from a white person about race other than, "get over it." Still, you're right in part, just not that it's a cause for racism, more so it's a cause for slow progress against forever-skeptics who want an out from their role in systemic racism. It also holds the message back in a way because the more you utter one phrase the more it begs to be countered without extra thought by what conservative commentators have already said, nullifying the fresh example before it triggers additional awareness of the ongoing systemic issues against black people. In other words it speeds up normalization of something that shouldn't be. I think this article lays out a valid journalistic mindset about the inclusion of race in a title.
Three words that repeatedly appear in stories about racially motivated shootings reinforce the biased assumptions that journalists are trying to expose.
www.poynter.org
"And when a journalist writes or utters the phrase “unarmed black man,” she is often honestly trying to quickly convey the key question the audience has: What was the circumstance of the confrontation?
Here’s how that logic plays out.
Journalist: A white man shot a black man.
Dubious audience member who might dismiss the story: What was the black man doing that caused the white man to shoot him?
Journalist: Well, the black man didn’t have a gun, he posed no deadly threat.
Audience: That’s important for us to know (because we have these hidden biases).
Journalist: Right, a white man shot an unarmed black man.
But it doesn’t work.
Language itself is complicated and it changes context,” said Karen Yin, a veteran editor and the creator and keeper of the
Conscious Style Guide, a resource that amalgamates dozens of recommendations and best practices for language describing communities historically marginalized by communicators. “The same language that works in one setting doesn’t work in another setting.”
Without being completely aware of it, journalists are using the phrase, “unarmed black man” to indicate an episode in the wide arc of unjustified violence by white people against black people."