Is "Hey boy" an acceptable greeting?

Hi, not sure if this is the right to place to ask such a question but here goes nothing. I was once walking in a park during day time and came across a guy who looked like a homeless/methhead who nodded at me and said "hey boy", I replied "hey" and nodded back and left him on his merry way. That said, I'm still curious if this greeting had a racist connotation to it given my middle eastern looks, or if it was some "gangster" cool kind of greeting. To give context, I'm tall and large and the guy was quite frail, so unless he was high, it would require a decent amount of balls to try to offend me. So is it an acceptable greeting?

Regards,

Fady