You could try spacemacs (what I use) or doom emacs. Both have vi-like keybindings as a default and are slightly easier to get going with than vanilla emacs. On the other hand, especially with spacemacs, there’s more to learn than vanilla emacs and more that can go wrong.
There’s a pinned post at the top of this very comm talking about exactly this issue: https://hexbear.net/post/403920?scrollToComments=false
Long story short, yes, it’s a racist term with a racist history and should not be used. Please change it