Terry Bollea was not Muhammad Ali, he was not a cool cat by nature. His persona outside of the ring is extremely lame. Cena's milquetoast in-ring persona was built around Bollea's actual persona. Point being is I don't believe Terry was even racist, I believe Terry was just a fucking loser. His best friends were his son Nic, who he probably lifted the edge lord racist gimmick from, Jimmy Hart, who he considered his "cool factor", holy fuck, a nasty boy and a barber, both losers and hangers-on, and the Temu shock jock version of Howard Stern, Bubba the Love Sponge.
Fuck. Terry was not a cool guy. Again, not Muhammad Ali when outside of the ring or character. So his cool guy persona is to be racist, or what he thinks a racist is. That's why Hogan was genuine in his locker room apology where he said something to the effect of "don't get caught", he genuinely didn't perceive himself to be a racist, and was also, again, a naive loser.
It's something crazy. Most every big name in wrestling had a natural cool to them, but not Terry. Without Hulk, he didn't exist. To keep Hulk a viable character, he had to develop the character, so to fit in to his circle of wealthy southern Tampa rednecks, he lifted theirs (persona) and used it as his own. But he was no racist. Anyone who's been fucked with by a racist can tell Hogan was a wannabe racist at best. He probably threw that shit out in front of Bubba's woman to come off like a Big Shit. I'm sure he threw N out all of the time, but in the "am I cool now, Nic?" kind of way, not in a "I genuinely hate those people" way, and it just stuck.
He embellished about a LOT, yes, even being a real racist.
I'm not giving him a pass, I'm not black or white. I really don't even care about the race shit. Just giving this the proper inspection it's always needed. He just wasn't a racist, he was a man without direction who was used for gain and who lived his party life vicariously through others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiGk-YTDPME 
