It's not about the actual impact of the words or anything like that. It's mostly tribal signaling - the current victors of the culture war desecrate their enemies cultural milieu. Rewording books, tearing down statues, demonizing past heroes, etc.

People will come up with other justifications (it causes harm, it's wrong, it's not inclusive) for why they're doing the above, but as all morals are ultimately relative (and thus their reasons are relative), it's just a means to an end.