Very interesting, I have done things similar to that myself. The "China" issue was supposedly an Asian female model eating a cannoli with chopsticks. The model didn't seem to mind. She did the job and I'm sure was paid well for it. We dont want to get into what's going on in China and people NOT getting paid to work so...I didn't see anything wrong with that. It seems rather strange that some of their "anti" stuff was towards LGBT community which is ironic since D&G are/were an openly gay couple for 23 years. They made a comment about not supporting "synthetic children" meaning IVF and surrogate mothers so ELTON JOHN freaked out, understandably. But that's their religious beliefs, ironically. They created a sandal and named it the "Slave". I can definitely see an issue with that. Definitely a name in poor taste but I don't think it was intentionally named to insult black people. I just cant believe their staff didn't say like, hey, dudes, that's not going to go over too well. Maybe they're just dumb. It's just so complicated. All over a handbag!
Generically, that is the name of the sandal, a Roman slave sandal denoting the slaves that Romans kept and could well be ancestors of either partner. However, AD, and especially in the 21 century, it was clearly going to be an own goal. As you say 'dumb'.
Interestingly many don't mind going around with Cartier's 'slave' bracelets, the Love design obviously based on 19C slave shackles. Just saying.