So, they have less empathy for the outgroup of puppets? That’s not a strong argument for inborn empathy.

While I can’t speak for you, I remember imagining inanimate objects had feelings as a kid, which made choices to reject something absurdly difficult.

Facial preferences don’t help, either, and are part of an established body of research showing the early, undirected manifestation of discriminatory biases. On racism, for example

Race is a multidimensional and socially constructed (Smedley & Smedley, 2005) lens through which even infants engage with the social world. Research from racially and culturally diverse contexts has shown that 3-month-olds prefer faces from particular racial groups (Bar-Haim, Ziv, Lamy, & Hodes, 2006), and 9-month-olds use race to categorize faces (Anzures, Quinn, Pascalis, Slater, & Lee, 2010). Before entering preschool, 3-year-old United States-based children associate low-status racial groups with negative traits (Dunham, Chen, & Banaji, 2013; Newheiser, Dunham, Merrill, Hoosain, & Olson, 2014), and by age 4, they associate particular racial groups (e.g., Whites) with high status markers (e.g., wealth; Olson, Shutts, Kinzler, & Weisman, 2012). And United States children experience the negative consequences of living in a racialized world: seven-year-olds experience racial discrimination (Marcelo & Yates, 2019), and race-based discrimination is widespread in schools (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2018).

the APA has argued racist ideas can emerge early, so adults need to talk about race with their children earlier. Such biases are not very empathetic and need correction.

Empathy is a skill that needs development.