These terms amongst hundreds of others build up a mental association between blackness and wrongness.
The word "black", just by itself - look a dictionary definition. In addition to the raw color is used to connote a sad event, anger, or just evil ("it was a black day", "full of anger or hatred", "very evil or wicked").
On the flipside white is used to connote purity and goodness. In the context of America we're talking about a country which favored bleached white foods to anything else for the same reason.
I just don't get how people can't see the harm that is accrued from not the single example but the hundreds collectively.
Also, for the record, I think changing the name of the project verges on absurd.