The charge that Perry is a racist is an outrageous smear. From the liberal Texas Tribune:

“Even some of Perry’s fiercest Texas critics say they do not believe he is racist. They point to his record of appointments as evidence: He appointed the state’s first African-American state supreme court justice, Wallace Jefferson, and later made him chief justice. (Jefferson’s great grandfather was a slave, ‘sold like a horse,’ Perry once said with disgust.) Perry’s former general counsel and former chief of staff, Brian Newby, is black; so is Albert Hawkins, the former Health and Human Services commissioner who Perry handpicked to lead the massive agency in 2002.”

“’He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body,’ said former Democratic state Rep. Ron Wilson, who is black and served with Perry in his early years in the Legislature. ‘He didn’t then, and he doesn’t now.’”
texastribune.org