Ordinary words in one language can sound like foul words or slurs in another language.
People who can't accept this are not yet adults emotionally.
Funny story: decades ago, I was riding a bus with a friend; we were conversing in a language in which the word fact sounds a lot like fucked, with an unvoiced d. Some old lady was giving us dirty looks. Yes, silly hag, we did not suffer a pointless vowel shift in our language; all the Latin-derived stuff (that also forms the basis of a lot of English) sounds close to the original!
We could have an argument about whether we should even have words that have this kind of “Voldemort” power in our vocabulary, but at present we ascribe a lot of power to these words.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/542122/origin-of...
But is the plant name racist in the sense that when they named it, they were picking the slur purposefully? Or does the word simply _sound_ like the slur?
Even the latter can be enough if you consider what it would be like if name had the "N" word - or even something that had the same sound. You would literally be unable to use the plant name out loud. But it would be important for publications covering this to not call it a "racist plant name" as that really depends on how the name was given.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_(racial_term)?useskin=v...