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Notes -
I've not watched the episode, although I'm familiar enough with it in outline.
The reason the lesson can be about hate is because racism was viewed, in the 1960's, as about hate. Race hate was one of the parts of the contemporary definition of racism. In the same way pre-21st century ideas about racism might say something to the effect of, "It's judging someone on the basis of their race", people in the 1960's would understand racism to mean -- at least in part -- hating someone on the basis of their race. That is to say, the lesson of the episode is 100% about racism, just not as we know it.
I think the conception of racism as "hate" was still present to a strong degree even into the 90's and 2000's, where only then did it start to be about mere sensitivity (i.e. not making casual race jokes). For some reason, I'm thinking about the Static Shock episode where Virgil gets thrown back in time to the 50's/60's and brings MLK to his time (before having to put him back because MLK not being around in his own time caused racism to still be strong).
In the UK I would say it flipped (or rather was flipped by American activists and British imitators) in about 2015. I grew up in the 90s and I remember feeling a very strong reaction in the mid 10s of “what? Racism means hate or disdain, not an interested query into where your family comes from.”.
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