>>54619387Also it's, y'know, America. Wanting to give an America-themed region a multiracial vibe is completely natural, and would've been a completely apolitical thing to do in 2009. Heck, black people are one of the things America is particularly famous for among the Japanese, so expecting Japanese media NOT to depict that seems unlikely.
Also, Turner only designed three lines for gen 5 and really hasn't designed that many Pokemon overall, so crawling up his ass for gen 5 (or modern Pokemon in general) supposedly being bad is absurd. In any case I'd argue that Golurk and Trevenant are great, and Dondozo and Tatsugiri are at least interesting, which is more than I can say for a lot of gen 9 designs.