As I remember it, there were quite a few episodes where race was dealt with indirectly. By that I mean, the idea of difference would constantly come up in regards to things like the clothes people were wearing, or characters who wore glasses or not, etc.
Treating people the same regardless of differences was a constant theme of the show from my memory. Helping people, not holding them back. It was by no means ignoring the other-side of this, it just took the unapologetic stance that there is only one proper way to treat people, and wouldn't it be great if we could all live that way everyday?
That being said, we're very regimented in screen time. My son maybe gets 20-30 minutes of TV time per day. We've also changed the format where each family member gets a turn to pick what to watch so we can expose him to more things.
I take issue with what you say here:
a> It was by no means ignoring the other-side of this
No racist ideas ever appeared on the show. That is the definition of "ignoring the [racist] side of this."
Ignoring != suppressing. Ignoring thoroughly debunked and discredited notions is healthy, and universal. NASA isn’t suppressing flat Earthers by not presenting their views alongside their scientific discoveries. It’s the job of the flat Earthers to present their own ideas, not act as social and intellectual parasites while crying that others aren’t carrying their weight for them. Mr. Rogers, on his own show, presented his own views, and that isn’t “suppressing” anything either.
> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
If there was some new information in the debates over race in the 60’s, then your point would stand. That wasn’t the case though, and there was nothing to suppress except a persistent, ancient, hateful ideology. This is true in the same way that balanced reporting shouldn’t boil down to giving a scientist explaining why the Earth is round, with a lunatic who thinks it’s flat. They’re entitled to their beliefs, and tell them to anyone who wants to listen, and we’re entiteld to ignore them like they don’t exist. That’s not “suppression” in a meaningful sense.
I think Rogers was not polarizing because he delivered his views in a calm, measured and reasoned manner. Polarizing statements are ones deliberately calculated to reduce someone else's view or accusing the other side of something to advance your own views.
So depicting a peanut butter sandwich might be illegal. Or it might be like marijuana, where depicting a peanut butter sandwich, while technically legal, is seen as an inducement to commit a crime and so is suppressed by extralegal means. On the other hand, depicting peanut butter and bread but no sandwich... well, obviously, a peanut butter sandwich is what would have come next, if the filmmakers weren't under the thumb of the government. Obviously
If sandwiches are contested, then showing them (or not showing them) is political. Civil rights was and is contested; Fred Rogers' presentation of a colorblind little slice of utopia to America's children was political too.