Even certain sportswear manufactures would hesitate to employ such a cynical co-opting of the Black Lives Matters movement. There have been dozens of ridiculous excuses for previous anti-doping violations from Dennis Mitchell's amorous love-making to Tyler Hamilton's vanishing twin, but by playing the race card in such a polarised society such as South Africa Ralepelle risks enormous damage to an over-worked and under-funded anti-doping system.
An excellent recent BBC podcast series, How they Made Us Doubt Everything, investigates how the tobacco industry invented the playbook for discrediting mainstream science. It quotes a secret memo from within the industry in 1956. "Doubt is our product. Since it is the best means of competing with the body of fact that exists in the minds of the general public, it is also the means of establishing controversy." Accusations of racism could do just that.
If Ralepelle feels he was targeted by doping testers, then tough. He failed two previous tests. He should be held to a higher standard. Maybe he deserved the benefit of the doubt for his first failed test in 2010 when was eventually cleared of culpability by the South African Rugby Union for taking contaminated supplements. As for his second failed test, for taking the anabolic steroid drostanolone while playing for Toulouse in 2015, Ralepelle told a South African reporter, "But that's life. C'est la vie."
The sadness is Ralepelle should have been an inspirational story. After captaining the South African under-19 and under-21 sides, Ralepelle became the first black player and youngest man of any colour - at 20 - to lead a senior Springbok side that faced a World XV in a match in 2006.
In some respects, he still has that opportunity to be a role model. A teammate from that 2006 South African team - Johan Ackermann, who is white - also failed a doping test for nandrolone in 1997. Ackermann admitted culpability, served his time and is unafraid to discuss his mistake.
"In the situation there are a lot of ifs and whys but I believe that experience has helped me," Ackermann previously told Telegraph Sport. "I never knew that I would be part of a coaching set up where you can go back and share that experience with people."
Ralepelle too can take ownership of his mistakes: Of double-checking the veracity of every supplement you ingest, and of the consequences of taking shortcuts. Doing that would set a powerful example to young black South Africans, just as much as Siya Kolisi, the World Cup-winning Springbok captain. That will require honesty and responsibility, qualities Ralepelle has yet to demonstrate.