Was Charles Dickens a social progressive?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Was Charles Dickens a social progressive?
Position‹2 of 2: No, Dickens was not a social progressive

Although Dickens drew attention to working-class issues, his approach was largely melodramatic and was designed to entertain his middle-class readership. Additionally, he displayed anti-Semitism and racism in several instances, including in defending the actions of the British Empire and equating Jews with criminals in "Oliver Twist".

Supporting arguments · 4

Dickens defended the colonial privileges of Europeans and displayed racism
Dickens, like many people of his time, endorsed the British Empire and its colonial aims to conquer non-western nations, and dismissed the cultures of indigenous peoples as primitive and inferior to the British way of life in his writings "The Noble Savage" and "The Frozen Deep".
Dickens was not an active reformer
Although Dickens drew public attention to the plight of the working classes, he was not himself an active reformer.
Dickens was anti-Semitic
In his depiction of Fagin, a criminal and thief, in the novel "Oliver Twist", Dickens invokes many significant anti-Semitic tropes which, though common at the time, had been denounced and could have been challenged by Dickens considering he positioned himself as a champion of the underdog.
Dickens' novels can be considered "poverty porn"
In presenting the dire conditions poor people in Victorian England lived in, it is possible that Dickens was exploiting their hardships to entertain his reader and increase his circulation as a writer. Are his depictions of the poor gratuitous?