This is eerily similar to the episode of South Park where there's a huge commotion over their old town flag:
The kids in town can't see the issue because they aren't actually tribals, but Chef thinks that they're defending lynching black people, so he converts to Islam and tries to leave town. Eventually the boys go up to a public debate on the flag and Chef realizes that the boys are oblivious because they don't actually see race as something to judge people over. So they solve the problem once and for all by changing the flag to this:
So that people of all races are lynching the guy, and he's smiling too.
I propose a solution: The Mr. Popo plan. Instead of dressing up with black makeup as soot, like so:
Just buy some dark blue makeup and use that instead. Close enough.