Except they don't find it racially degrading. It's just your holier than thou cultural fascism taking that for granted.
I'm fed up with all this grandstanding and derogatory remarks as if South Americans were simply backwards and living in the Middle Ages.
A few facts for you:
- Uruguay abolished slavery in 1815
- Black people could vote here before women did
- We were the first national team to show up at an international tournament (1916 Copa America) with not one but two black players, one of them a winger and the halfback playing behind him was the nephew of the country's President.
- All of that happened here before Martin Luther King was even born, let alone shot.
We use nicknames that make reference to identifiable characteristics, be it skin colour, hair colour or absence of it, weight, height, shape, nationality, oversized nose/ears/mouth/cock and whatnot, even physical handicaps (manco, tuerto, chueco, mudo). We use them with mates obviously, not random people down the street. More than endearment, it indicates intimacy. Harry Maguire would no doubt be "El Cabeza" to his mates.
For every one of those identifiable/remarkable characteristics you could have the negative overtone option (typically adding "feckin'" or something along those lines to make it bloody clear). Hell, even on here you have people referring to Maguire's big head when having a pop.
In a way, what it actually does is neutralise the negatively loaded references by creating positively charged ones for the exact same attribute.