I don't understand why it offends people. I understand that anything linguistically tied to America's race issues is becoming taboo and this is now A New Rule, but I still don't get the mental process that's going on inside the minds of the offended, or feel the emotional response that they feel.

That's quite a scary thing, not because I have a problem with renaming words that make other people feel bad, but because I don't understand why they feel bad in the first place. That means I can't predict what's going to happen next or whether I'm doing something wrong that I don't know about but will get me fired. The whole thing is confusing and strange and unpredictable, and I can't tell whether it's going to end in civil rights, civil war, or just be a storm in a teacup.

I'm guessing people who are dismissive of e.g. Github renaming master branches are feeling the same way and lashing out.