They might have been more eager to push Griffey because he was black but it was 100% justifiable because he was that good. He was right there in the running with Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa during the home run record chase in 1998.
Optics don't matter at all for their side. they openly campaigned on letting convicted sex offenders in women's bathrooms and replacing all white men with Guatemalan migrants and we only won because Donald Trump is an extraordinary, once in a lifetime politician.
Leftists can read about a setting where a race of creatures from the darkest jungles are completely dedicated to death and destruction and say "wow, why are they writing about black people like that?" and they're not joking.
Somebody's going to have to come up with a sweeping, broad "don't be a piece of shit" anti-malicious compliance ordinance that gets enforced extremely quickly and comes with disproportionate consequences before things can get better.
Anything that gets these kinds of people out of my country is perfectly fine with me, I don't really care what the official justification is. We needed to be doing a lot worse to these people 30 years ago.