There's a fork in the road, when you're unlearning toxic shit, that I like to call the Slur Event Horizon. Where you've learned just enough about social justice to identify the surface symptoms of oppressive structures, but you haven't really internalized the principles on a foundational level.
So you find yourself staring at the face at someone you really fucking hate, and fumbling for a slur to use.
Because you come from a culture (built on those oppressive systems) that has taught you slurs are the words you use, in this situation. You have cultural baggage that has taught you how to handle this situation, and the way you handle this situation is by yelling a slur at someone.
But here's the thing, you've also learned from peers and mentors that social justice is in fact a thing you want to cosign. You agree with everything you've been told about social justice. You think women should be people and gays should be married and trans people should get all the dresses or drugs they want to be happy. You have Black friends and Asian friends and you even know the difference between Latino and Hispanic. Your crush turned you down but you were okay with it because they're ace and you know that's not just an excuse, that's who they are and you acknowledge and respect that.
You like to think you're a good person. Nothing extraordinary, you're not one of those people who are radical in their beliefs. You vote when you find out there's elections (but you don't seek them out or stay on top of them or go to meetings to yell at people or anything). You're normal and pretty decent, even, certainly better than your boomer parents and all their hateful bigotry (that you've been really thinking about limiting or cutting off contact because you've realized they make you into a worse version of yourself) and, well. Here you are, trying to be better. And then you run into this person that you hate (justifiably, even!) and you need to make it known, you need to grab the festering, vicious, poisonous thing under your tongue and spit it out, preferably in their face.
So you do what you're told and you reach for a slur and it... chafes.
Your feelings are real and valid and burning, but you know better, really. You like to think you do. You know calling someone a name for their gender or race or sexuality is... y'know. Bad.
This might be in fact the reason why you hate this specific person so much! They're so bigoted and evil. They pick on your friends. They've hurt your family. They make a mockery of real tragedies. Perhaps, they have proudly committed or participated in actual, real, serious crimes and the thought alone makes your blood boil.
But you're a good person, and you've done all the reading about why slurs are bad and hurtful and evil.
But just this once...
And here's where the split happens:
Because you can choose to swallow it back and sit with your feelings and internalize a bit more why slurs are not good, actually, and yeah. Yeah, you need to learn a new way to express frustration and anger towards people who, frankly, fucking suck, but who are, at the end of the day, still people.
Or you decide you need a slur, but not like all the other ones, because the problem with slurs, surely, is not that they dehumanize people, but that they target the wrong people. So you come up with a new one. This slur is okay to use, because it's targeting evil people.
Or maybe you decide that in this clear instance, the slur is okay, actually, because the target is irredeemable and unforgivable and not actually a person and therefore it's okay to use a slur because it's not dehumanization if they're not human anyway!
And the thing is, the Slur Event Horizon is where a lot of would-be progressives slideback into bigotry, because now you've made a choice. Now it's not about when you were younger and more ignorant and you didn't know any better. You knew and you made the choice and if someone points out, "yeah that's... that's wrong actually, try again" you will feel very attacked. Obviously targeted. Singled out unnecessarily.
Here's the thing, you can't bully a stranger to backtrack, if they've chosen the wrong option out of the Slur Event Horizon. You can absolutely nudge a friend or family member and point out you think they've fucked up, because your relationship will serve as a buffer. See, a friend pointing out they might have gone down the wrong road is helpful. Considerate even. People who are close to them care about them, so it's not about punishment or public humiliation, it's about growth!
But a stranger fumbling this will not in fact recalibrate if you yell at them about it. That's not to say you should just let them go about calling the dipshit of the hour slurs. Slurs are bad, they're toxic and hurt people, more than just the person being targeted. They ruin communities and ostracize minorities. Slurs have no place in public spaces and the reaction to them should always be "no", sometimes "FUCK no" and even "the fuck, NO."
My point is, you should not derail the swift, unforgiving response to slurs by trying to shame or bully the user for being a bad leftie or a bad progressive or a bad whatever the fuck ideological group you're part of. You're not changing minds by derailing into a debate about the appropriate use of slurs and whether a specific dipshit has dipshit enough to merit unpersoning. You're just platforming slurs and giving them a veneer of acceptability, because otherwise there would be nothing to debate.
(There is nothing to debate. Slurs are dehumanizing language and if you give two shits about social justice, dehumanization should be the first, biggest nono you learn. And no, "reclaimed" slurs are not the same as slurs. It's not about the words themselves, it's about how you use them. If you're using words as slurs, you've fucked up and fundamentally lost the plot.)