I don't think they are trying to appease them, nor at they aware this constitutes as a betrayal of fans to some. If there is a whole crew of niggers from Mali in the game, I will rescind my statement, but right now this is likely a boomer-esque attempt to dunk on those journos, in the "You are the real racists, It was always about historical accuracy" way. To them (and to most normies) the fight against "DEI" and "wokeism" does not mean what it means to you.
His initial le epic based redpilled statement was "there were no black people in medieval Bohemia". This was in response to game journos asking "where are the black people", and obviously the point of contention was that all the NPCs living in rural Bohemia are white. Featuring black people in Skalitz or Rattay would have been stupid, highly ahistorical and was not the vision he had for the game. However, a singular black person, who is a travelling scholar, from one of the most wealthy empires at the time being around Kuttenberg or the surrounding area is as historically accurate as Markvart von Aulitz being the main antagonist - as far as I know, he is supposed to be dead even before the events of KCD1.
I don't think Vavra assumes that his fanbase is unironically racist and just hates black people, which is why he saw no problem with putting this character into the game. The team is probably very confused that people are so up-in-arms about this character, which is why they are saying nothing about it - they don't know what to say. However, if he is secretly woke and wanted to appease the game journos, this would be the most opportune time to call out the "racist neo-nazi chuds" of his fandom and tell them "Don't like it, don't buy it". He isn't doing that, which should count for something. I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, since he has been fighting an uphill battle for a long time for no immediate personal gain, and I find this meltdown that people are having about this character to be ill-advised.