many of the people I met [in GA] were very enthusiastic about making their own "observation(s) about reality."

Aye, I have no doubt that bigots see their comments as just being "observations about reality." The difference with this particular quote, though, was that a) he was talking about demographics of people selling bootlegs in LA, and b) he was stating a reason it's difficult to keep the "pirates" from coming back when you catch one. There were no racial slurs that I saw, no suggestion that all Hispanics are pirates, no suggestion that only Hispanics are pirates, no suggestion that Hispanics shouldn't be allowed into the country, no suggestion that they should all be in prison, and, in fact, no attempt to cast a broad generalization about Hispanic people at all. It would be akin to me, after having lived in LA for two years, saying "the majority of gardeners in LA are Hispanic." After all, in those two years, I haven't seen a single non-Hispanic gardener, though I'm sure there are some out there. The only thing I can fault that guy with is lack of knowledge of common Hispanic sur-names, which hardly constitutes an example of bigotry.