Or, you know, let's call a spade a space, and that the "thinly veiled racism" accusation is just a thought stopper, based on the a priori premise that a certain group of people can do no harm just because they're in distress themselves...

what race has to do with this? Go topless in say Iran and report back on your experience. You do realize that Iran is "land of the Aryans" literally so while anything you disagree with you can easily dismiss by labeling it racism in this case you gonna have pretty tough time.