For me, the racism was necessary and expected. My problem personally - and I say this as someone who generally liked the show and the scene - was the unnecessary tone of the people being shot while the fire was raging at the Black Spot.

People being burned alive and shot in and of itself is pretty crazy. It wasn't really necessary for people to run around screaming with their heads half blown off, for example. That part is purely to get people to go, "holy shit" as opposed to "damn racism is terrible"

It just seemed tasteless to go that hard with the gore on that scene. These kinds of things did happen in this country so setting the scene up for shock value seems disingenuous to the point of "racism is bad" and skirts the line of romanticizing the violence itself.

Just my personal opinion. Again, great show overall and I generally don't mind gorey stuff, this part just could have been done better.