I think it should be mentioned that there are not just white people in the game. There are also black people who you only ever see shooting at you, getting beaten up by you, beating you up, buying drugs from you, or getting "comically" shot in the face for being too uppity.
I get that people could see there being some racism against Irish or even Italian people, but they basically have a respectable amount of power and come into these fights eyes open. The black people get shot or beaten up whether they attack you or not if they come up in the storyline, and the best they get off is buying heroin from you in a cutscene.
Racism is a pretty amazing force, isn't it?