You've missed the point. No one is saying he picked IC because of racism. The point is that the reaction from Mills (and to a lesser extent Southgate), and comments about him since were well over the line, and I think Harris is bang on.
The observation that to call playing for IC 'the easy route' when it involves flying to Africa and playing in stadiums where games get called off due to pitch invasions, or where crowds are separated from the pitch by armed soldiers is one that an awful lot of people seemed to miss as well.

Playing for the Ivory Coast makes international breaks harder with more travel, and means he could be disappearing to AFCON regularly. That potentially means his value dips, and top clubs maybe be slightly reluctant to pay him mega bucks if he's unavailable for a key part of a title chase. He may well also lose out on the same sort of high value endorsement deals that England internationals routinely get (Joe Hart and Gareth Southgate are two that come immediately to mind). He didn't make the choice because it was easy.

In interviews, in person and when you ever hear anyone talk about meeting Wilf, almost universally people say how nice he is, almost shy. He's a quiet lad who gives shed loads to charity and came back to Palace rather than sit on the bench for Utd, yet throughout his career people have questioned his attitude. Even on here, some people have questioned his contribution, work rate, attitude etc.

Employee of the month is a good example of how someone can be both a winner and a loser at the same time.

According to an article in The Guardian there were problems with Zaha a couple of years ago when his colleagues in the U23 side complained about his attitude:-

"Southgate wasn’t manager at the tournament two years ago and, decent bloke that he is, he will have an open mind when it comes to Zaha. Yet there are other people at the Football Association who remember what Zaha was like last time, when Stuart Pearce’s team lost every single match, and could be forgiven for thinking Southgate should keep him a very long arm’s length away. Zaha gave them the impression that being away with England felt like a chore. His attitude was poor and divisive and in the final game Jordan Henderson snapped at half-time and told Zaha exactly what he thought of him while everyone in the dressing room left the Liverpool player to it. If anything, Pearce and his coaches probably wish Henderson had done it in the first game rather than the last one.

Since then, England’s management have always looked at Zaha through suspicious eyes. Roy Hodgson decided the winger should get a clean slate once Southgate replaced Pearce and even called him up into the senior squad. Yet he also felt it necessary to speak to the relevant people at Manchester United about the player’s attitude."

[Link]

You mean the IC manager knows what he's doing

similar can be said about Gayle whilst here with us. unquestioned talent but questionable work ethic.

Clinton is Clinton. I have known him for a long time, I know his mother... Simon Jordan

Hopefully we can keep him for another year or at the very least that all this publicity is adding to his price tag. Seems inevitable that he will leave again eventually though and we really need a plan in place as it would be the first time in about 6 or 7 years that we don't have Zaha or Bolasie in the team.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold...