I think you’re meeting him well more than half way in your interpretation. He didn’t condemn making racist jokes, he just acknowledged that people don’t like them anymore. That’s just not “he thought about it and came around”.

“You don’t make the gate, you’re out of the game. The game is where is the gate and how do I make the gate to get down the hill.”

He’s explicitly looking at this as a necessity of his profession, not a change of heart.