He was known for saying some really racist stuff as well, that I was not aware of.
This is a huge pet peeve of mine, as someone who deals in language.
I think he said some tone-deaf, and certainly by the mores of our current times, cringe-worthy things.
But racist? I feel we've watered that word down to where it has almost no meaning anymore. It used to mean someone who felt that people not of their race were unequal to them, as in biologically inferior. Lincoln, for example, was a racist:
“There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together... while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any man am in favor having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
Now it could be argued that almost all whites of the era felt they were born superior to blacks, but still that would mean most all of them of the era were racists - I would support that. They genuinely felt that whites were superior to other races.
The Japanese still believe this. Many whites still believe this. Lighter skin Brazilians think this about the darker Brazilians, and so on.
That's racism.
I don't know whether Philip was truly racist, as in believed in natural born superiority over other races, but I don't think the cringe-worthy quotes are examples of that. Hell all of them are tame to what blacks, whites, yellows and reds say to each other in the military and they'd die for each other.
At any rate I think that the idea that anything that is insensitive is by definition racist really waters down racism and makes it harder to identify true racists with racist ideology.
In the internet times saying shit like "Mexican food is gross" would have half of twitter saying you're racist.
RIP Prince you seemed like a pretty good dude for a royal.