The jamboree bear Liver Lips McGrowl is being replaced because alcoholics might be offended by his name. He is being replaced by Romeo McGrowl, who will later be replaced for having a name that ideates teen suicide.
No. Here’s a better article. It was because the term was also used as a slut against African Americans.
I thought Steven Tyler was “Liver Lips”!
That article says that the term “liver lips” is associated with alcohol use, but that’s not something I had ever heard. Apparently it is offensive, though, because it was first used to describe African-American lips, and their size and color.
Or possibly ideates excessive predatory sexuality.
I feel like his lips weren’t modelled after the “L word”.
And why “McGrowl”? I don’t think Scotland is known for its thriving bear population.
I’ve never heard of “Liver Lips” being a slur against anyone. But perhaps I travel in less-slurry circles.
As far as the Country Bears go: I think we should count ourselves lucky that they didn’t replace Liver Lips with The Hulk.
No, that’s his uncle cousin Lothario McGrowl.
My lawyer “Licky-lips” J.Lester Lichtenstein might feel he’s being slurred. And he’d be correct.
The man licks his lips like Joe Biden pulls his ear.
I buy him a chapstick bundle for Christmas every year. I know he needs it.
I adore him.
Alcoholics aren’t offended by a bear named Liver Lips. They’re offended when a bartender won’t serve them another drink. You’ll hear some seriously offensive names when that happens.
I hadn’t ever noticed hearing it before but have actually heard it at least two or three times. I know this now because I have watched Christmas Vacation at least two or three times.
Google search link showing many tee-shirt designs.
(Clarke was yelling that to rednecks in a truck.)
Also, you’re white, and we white people tend to encounter fewer anti-black slurs, especially the more old-fashioned kind of anti-black slurs, than black people do (unless we hang out with full-on hardcore racists).
But yes, “liver lips” as a term mocking African-American physiognomy is definitely a well-attested slur, going back at least as far as sources like the circa 1890 minstrel song “The Whistling Coon”:
Awkward spot for a typo, but we know what you meant. 
As to what “liver lips” means …
I’ve never heard of it applied to alcoholics. Absent info to the contrary I’d assume the OP’s cite is a joke or bad satire. Or Disney being very discreet about what they tell their employees and customers.
IME it always and only has been a racist slur and has been since I was a kid.
Large segments of the Appalachian-American population (and other rural southerners often described with, shall we say, unflattering words) tend to be associated with lower-class Scots-Irish roots. So there has always been quite an intersectionality of stereotype going on at the Jamboree.
The “Inside the Magic” blog post linked to in the OP’s cite, which IMHO reads as though it was written by a chatbot, states the “alcoholism liver damage” explanation up front and, a few paragraphs later, the racial-slur explanation, followed by a repetition and expansion of the liver-damage explanation.
I guess the reporter in the OP’s cite, who is possibly also a chatbot, didn’t bother reading the blog post they cited all the way through.
I would also not be surprised if it turns out that “liver lips” is in fact sometimes used as a derogatory reference to side effects of excessive alcohol use (along the lines of “whisky nose” or “rum blossom”). Superficially a race-neutral epithet, but with a potential subtext of “hee hee, your alcohol-inflamed lips make you look like a [racial slur]!”
So, is Disney going to claim Liver Lips McGrowl died of cirrhosis of the lips?
Is alcohol known to inflame lips? I know/have known a lot of heavy drinkers and alcoholics in my life, and this is not something I’ve observed or heard.
indirectly …
heavy users fall a lot or - depending their temper - run into the odd fist
which leads to facial inflamation
Apparently it can happen, at least according to one recovery-center website:
That link’s not a medical site, but apparently it’s true that alcoholism is a medically recognized causal factor in actinic cheilitis.
I would also-also not be at all surprised if Disney knows very well that “liver lips” as a slur is far more strongly associated with race than with alcoholism, but they would rather use official explanations involving alcoholism rather than race, so that’s their story and they’re sticking to it.
Is “Romeo McGrowl” really the same person as “Liver Lips McGrowl,” after he sobered up and got a makeover? Is he a relative (and if so, how related)?
Was “Liver Lips” really so well-known that it wasn’t sufficient just to change the name? Does he even need a name?