My gut feeling is that this is an imported form of activism, taking offence at something that is obviously racist in an American context, but not necessarily in British or whatever one.
An extreme case of it would be interpreting capirote wearers during hols week in Spain as endorsing KKK. Or to pain Buddhists or Native Americans as Nazi sympathisers because they use swastikas in their design.
Or, as a less extreme case, claiming that the „Schwarze Mann“ (literally „The black man“; culturally „Bogeyman“) obviously refers to blackfacing and is thus a racist concept.
