5e deserves credit for its greater representation of BIPOC people in the PHB, but I agree with
@Bluenose that in a number of respects it made things worse.
Bio-essentialism has been made more explicit. This was probably the intent in 1e too, but it wasn’t as clear-cut. 5e PHB:
The evil deities who created other races, though, made those races to serve them. Those races have strong inborn tendencies that match the nature of their gods. Most orcs share the violent, savage nature of the orc god, Gruumsh. and are thus inclined toward evil. Even if an orc chooses a good alignment, it struggles against its innate tendencies for its entire life. (Even half-orcs feel the lingering pull of the orc god's influence.)
The division of the world into "civilized" and "savage" humanoid races mirrors the world-view and language of a 19th century imperialist. 5E MM (emphasis mine):
Humanoids are the main peoples of the D&D world, both civilized and savage… The most common humanoid races are the ones most suitable as player characters: humans, dwarves, elves, and halflings. Almost as numerous but far more savage and brutal, and almost uniformly evil, are the races of goblinoids (goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears), orcs, gnolls, lizardfolk, and kobolds.
The artwork used for goblins and hobgoblins is a
caricature of East Asian people. This was not the case from 2e to 4e and is probably a reference to the Japanese warrior armour in the art for the 1e MM hobgoblin.
The lizardfolk entry in the 5e MM is a straight "Darkest Africa" story about "primitive" cannibal tribes except with lizard people inserted in the place of black people. The 1e lizard man is more like an animal, living in caves and fighting with teeth and claws, apart from 10% that have "evolved to a higher state", live in "crude huts" and use weapons.
5e made orcish sexual violence explicit, though it had always been implicit in the concept of the half-orc. 5E MM: "Luthic, the orc goddess of fertility and wife of Gruumsh, demands that orcs procreate often and indiscriminately so that orc hordes swell generation after generation. The orcs' drive to reproduce runs stronger than any other humanoid race, and they readily crossbreed with other races."
Fear of miscegenation is apparent in the
1e/2e use of the word "mongrel" to describe half-orcs, and in Tolkien. The Two Towers: "Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!" This is Treebeard referring to the work of Saruman.
In addition to sexual violence the related idea of orcs outbreeding other races can be seen in the 5e MM "Luthic" quotation above. Very similar notions can be found in
the writings of early 20th century race "scientists" and in the recent (2011) far right idea of the
Great Replacement.