It's a bit different when African-Americans make fun of African-Americans. The difference here is that the people behind this film are mostly white men! That's when you're walking on egg shells IMO.
Yes, as I've already mentioned in this thread, this particular character (as well as Bernie Mac's and his character's family in TF1) were criticized too when the first movie came out (as were the "spanish" characters in the film, if anyone remembers correctly).
I think this is one of the reasons why it's an issue now... simply because Michael Bay has a track record of including these types of characters solely for the purpose of generating cheap laughs. The inevitable question is... is he doing it consistently on purpose because he's racist, or accidentally because he's culturally insensitive?