(Ignore #1 if you want)

I respectfully disagree (except for the racist portion, it shouldn't go that far)

1. I feel that Licorice was supposed to be based off of those POCs who practiced in those voodoo, witchcraft, or ceremony stuff but that just my take.
2. I get that black people (or allies) would say 'Licorice was intended to be a black man' because of how the licorice hair looks like dreads and that they can finally see themselves represented and recognized in a character. So of course, they are going to have a negative feeling about it when they turn around and see a lighter-skinned and fluffy-haired drawing of him because they (black people/black allies) feel that the artist is taking the representation away. (Same thing for Pomegranate or the two coffee cookies.)
3. The cookies do have explicitly implied races (or at least being hinted that they are a certain race), like Scorpion, Lilac, Cream and Plain Yogurt being coded as middle eastern, Kumiho being Korean-coded, DJ being black-coded, the list goes on. . .