I think it's something related to the culture we live on and not specific to videogames. I mean, you see it other arts, and comics, anime, animation, etc etc.No I don't think racism was a factor at all. Elder Scrolls takes into account many types of human beings based on similar geographical locations in the real world. Thus a northern glacial/snow region was based on Nordic look and background and as mentioned they're primarily trying to ride the Skyrim-hype with the nord front-and-center.
Taking any kind of bible-related movie as an example automatically fails because what modern religions consider to the the racial-type/look of their ideological patriarchs makes no sense whatsoever and the reality wouldn't make a damn cent.
Some videogames feature black people in the cover, like say NBA Live 15 and NBA 2k15 (I have both games -I prefer NBA 2k15 at some thing, and in some other cases I prefer NBA Live 15-). I play both games alternatively, on and off, and they are very good sports games.