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@BastianBalthazarBux
According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the phrase ultimately traces back to a Greek expression appearing in Plutarch's Apophthegmata. Plutarch's phrase contained a noun meaning "trough, basin, bowl, boat," which, it seems, was later mistranslated by Erasmus, who mistook the word for a derivative of a Greek term meaning "to dig." The error was carried over into English, where the phrase came to be rendered as “to call a spade a spade”; the first citation of the phrase listed in the OED dates from 1542.
The earliest usage of “spade” to refer to a black person in English dates from 1928. Most etymologists agree that this usage stems from the comparison of such a person’s skin color to the black markings found on playing cards.
The spade referenced in “to call a spade a spade,” then, is clearly of the digging implement sort, and has nothing to do with the offensive racial epithet.