I'd say those people who suddenly make innocent common words "racist" are the assholes. They're extremely privileged and act like a totalitarian regime. What's scary is that they believe they're on the right side.
> Is it really so hard to see that the continued usage of "black = bad, white = good" could be problematic?
Why could it be problematic? That association exists in every culture and language. If you know that and you still hate it, the optimal solution would be not to call Europeans/Caucasians "white" and Africans/Negroids "black." It's as simple as that. Why do you want to keep calling people by color?