I could take offence by the limited perspective you put on the word relating it to only African Americans, there are many from Europe who fall in the sex slavery trade who are not black.
In Australia the word 'root' has sexual connotations, so if I was to work on your team would you be happy to change this word, so no more root access, root directory, if I said it was offensive ?
Words can be offensive, but generally they are offensive because of the context. For example, should it be offensive for me to say the night sky is black, black is an offensive word but it is also a valid contextual description.