Yeah, about the fro...look at every hairstyle Square has ever created, now look at the picture, I think that's possibly the most understated and subtle haircut ever in a FF game.
It hardly even counts as an afro in video game terms, at least he's not a crying androgynous blonde ladyboy like Tidus.
The only stereotype I can see is that Both Barrett and him look like fun characters, damn you Square for saying blacks are cool and fun!
Really tho, there's no racism going on, but until people quit leaping on every non white, non male non hetero character that appears, we're gonna be left with armies of stereotypical 'Doom guy' clones.
So no, the japanese are not being racist, or if they are, it's not a bad racism, its just a touch of ignorance about the outside cultures. Unless of course there's a QTE where you get bonus points for setting fire to a cross on his lawn, and they make him sit at the back of the airship. Then maybe they were being racist after all.
I also think whether you like it or not, most people carry the stereotypes around in their head anyways, you just try not to let them escape via the mouth. I don't really believe it, but at the same time, for instance, I wouldn't be surprised if the little old guy in my local chinese restaurant could take down a robber with his amazing combat skills, even tho he's like mid 70s. I know it's wrong, but its there still, and at least it's a positive bit of a racism.
As Louis CK said 'Why can?t we have racism that?s ignorant but nice? You could have stereotypes that are positive about race. You could say, ?Those Chinese people, they can fly!? ?You know about the Puerto Ricans? they?re made of candy!?'
Really, tho, until Mirror's Edge , did we have many asian characters who didn't have highly trained martial arts skills and wore pyjamas all day?
I so wanted to do my 'if there's two things I hate its racism, and the damn (insert race here) joke)' but I think I'll skip it given the banhammer shadow looming over my head, and the lack of humour shown whenever race comes up in the forum.