I guess I'm old, and I don't quite get the new sensibilities. In my mind it's just a word, and words used by people you don't care about, and/or don't respect, should never really have that great an effect on you. You should be more in the mind of "I thought you were better than that". If you don't know the person at all then, "why would I care what you say/think?". It's just a reflection of life, and society today, that we allow people to be too precious, and feel we have to protect people that are or want to be too precious. If you allow the words of people you don't know/respect to hurt you, or have an effect on you, you are just a ticking time bomb, and it's just a matter of time until something blows you up.
How on earth, the use of a single word, can be seen to be 3 times worse than a dangerous tackle, which truly does have the potential to actually hurt someone, is beyond me. Is it nice to use words like that? No. Does it have the potential to cause the person it was used against to miss games, or have life long injuries from it? I can only say if the answer is yes, or even maybe, then it's not a case of if it will happen, but when, and that person needs to get to work on finding some tools to deal with such things, because surely life will give them bigger obstacles than an errant word, from someone they don't know/respect!