It's just a skin color. The AI is free to choose whatever representation of it it wants. The issue here wasn't with people prompting images of a "white person", but of someone who is historically represented by a white person. So one would expect that kind of image, rather than something that might be considered racially diverse today.

I don't see how you can defend these results. There shouldn't be anything controversial about this. It's just another example of inherent biases in these models that should be resolved.