I'm willing to believe that maybe through some crazy chain of events you didn't know when you got it. I'm maybe even willing to believe that through some crazy chain of events you didn't learn about it for 18 years. What I am not willing to believe is that when he decided to run, nobody in his team told him. He should have gotten it covered or removed. They go through your life looking for anything bad because they know the opposition will. All this combined, there's 0% chance he just learned now. For some reason they're playing this weird game. The most generous interpretation I can come up with is that he feels attachment to it and doesn't wanna get rid of it, but even that's pretty fucked. You can't keep your racist tattoo just because you're nostalgic for it.