Miles became an ornery old man in the 1980s. Most of his angry statements (sure, some are about race, others are about all kinds of things he didn’t like for whatever reason) that became grist for quoting came generally when the quality of his work itself had already begun to decline significantly, in the view of most critics and jazz historians. For me, this doesn't “taint his legacy” as much as give me one more reason for ignoring his last decade, while still enjoying greatly the recordings generally regarded as classics.