It’s racist because it’s racist. It has historically been used in a racist manner, and that’s socially recognized. So, if you do it now, it’s interpreted as racist.
(Much like the swastika is a hate symbol because the swastika is a hate symbol. It has been used as such and now it’s socially recognized as such (even though there’s nothing inherently bad about a bunch of geometric lines (and, in fact, was a positive symbol for the first 5,000 years of its use)).)
This is misleading because some of, if not all, of those on the left column are intentionally not identifying the person (as is, I think, standard practice). It’s not a matter of them intentionally framing it in a certain way.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocus ?