I'll preface by saying I'm finishing the season since I already started, and because I liked s1 and s3 a lot.

In all honesty this season is garbage being pulled in too many different directions.

I do feel like many switched it off because they perceived the season as political pandering. But why paint people in such broad strokes? I don't think most did it because they're "mad at the black characters."

It's probably the fact that this show has never been about an immigrant/African American experience. If that's the direction they wanted to go in, it could've been done in a more sensible manner.

For example, the show is fiction, sure, but the Black Mafia literally didn't exist until the 60s and 70s. So how can you demonstrate historical American racism with situations that never existed? The show has people in positions of power that would have been assassinated in a day's time in 1950.

Isn't your production better served focusing on events that did take place?

I implore you to check how "pandering" was done properly - Watchmen.