You missed the whole point. If he attempted to make a positive gesture that accidentally beared resemblance to a racist salute and it blew up like it did, the logical next step would be to clear things up. He did not, in fact, say anything along the lines of "My bad, that looks like a Nazi salute, that's not what I was trying to do. I meant a different thing." That's a very bad look to have, and no sensible human would rely on a cultlike following to "correct" others for them.
