Anghraine

while a very confused Ash was like, "Has this person seen it?"

Very possibly no! It could be fandom osmosis takes, or just good ol' fashioned fandom blinders where the fanon has overtaken canon.

the various desperate flailing attempts I've seen to defend the general racism against Spock within the show

D:

I think you're familiar with lirazel but she has railed against McCoy's racism against Spock for as long as I've known her, so my perspective is super skewed on "people recognizing in-show racism by McCoy". That said, can't be too surprised fandom went with the wort option here.