I didn't say that everyone of any period was racist. I said that this kind of racist banter was "pretty normal" for the time. Normality is always defined by privileged people and if you are born into privilege, like any WASP male of Disney's time, you will unconsciously accept the behaviors define by that class as normal. Of course a person marginalized by those norms, like Angela Davis, will be able to see what is wrong with them. If Disney had been able to rebel against those norms he would have been a better person. But that doesn't mean that he is as bad as someone who would speak like that now. Check my other two replies to this reply for more details.

No one is claiming that Disney should be seen as heroic because of those conversations. He is a hero to me because he cared more about Art than Money, constantly putting his fortune at risk by trying new things. Also because he made some really good cartoons. The fact that he did a lot of other bad things does not make his artistic innovations any less heroic.

If I understand you, our disagreement is actually fairly subtle. We both recognize that people who do great things often do really bad things, and that it is OK to still admire some of their actions as heroic. What you seem to object to is calling someone a hero just because they did some heroic actions. You seem to want to limit the title of hero to someone who did ONLY heroic things.

My response is that there are no such people, and that if we are going to still have heroes we need to have critical awareness of both their strength and weaknesses. Anyone who has a single good quality deserves to be admired for that quality even if they have numerous other bad qualities. And conversely, we should not tell ourselves someone is perfect just because they have certain virtues or skills.