Portuguese here. Brazilians don’t used these expressions with the same meaning as their translation. There are several expressions that are affections but that when translated to English get a negative connotation.

In my opinion, he was just saying the equivalent of “that guy”. Portuguese from Brazil is a language that is very unique. To simply translate it and label it as racist is wrong.

Originally he said that sentence in Portuguese. It was later translated to English. I’m sure if he said it originally in English it would have used a different word. Languages are not the same everywhere. You have an expression in Portugal that is very common: “Vai dar uma curva”. It translates to “go take a turn”, meaning go bother someone else. However if you translate in to polish it’s insulting. If I was to say the same thing in English it would be “take a hike”.