The distinguished actor Ossie Davis wrote an essay about 35 years called "The English Language is My Enemy." It's been reprinted in freshman anthologies. In it, Davis listed a lot of expressions carrying various degrees of negativity involving the word "black." "Blackmail" for example, or "the Black Death."

On that basis he concluded that English itself was loaded against African Americans.

The missing element is there's no proof, or even evidence, that   people of any color connect these terms with African Americans unless invited to. And there's no evidence, even if they did, that it would have any significant effect on their attitudes toward (or as) black people.

I used this essay for class discussion many times. I don't recall a single freshman questioning its conclusion on his or her own. Most seemed to take it as a revelation of an indisputable truth they never would have thought of themselves. The essay's argument made some uncomfortable, but they couldn't quite put their suspicions into words. The students were disproportionately white, BTW.

In any discussion it takes a little bit of learning and sophistication just to ask the basic questions, "What's the evidence ?" and "How believable is it ?"