The vast majority of instances in which I hear it used are on multi-platinum selling records, or in packed auditoriums at stand-up comic performances. So it really can't be the word itself that is so terrible. To me at least, that exposes some hypocrisy (not directing this at you) of many who reeeeee at anyone who says it while not possessing the requisite color of skin to speak that word freely. I think this phenomenon may have been the origin of, or at the very least contributed to the now wide-spread mentality that blacks cannot be racist no matter what they do or say, and that only whites are capable of such evil.