No his life should not have been destroyed because of one mistake.

It is upsetting to see that you have now posted about this in two different areas (Gun Control Now and General & Hellos.) I honestly don’t know how you are still not getting this even after several people have explained how wrong your premise is. You say you get it, but then you keep pressing the issue. Let me try to explain this again. The n-word is NOT just a word. Words have power. Even my bigoted, Trump-supporting mother understands this. Based on your profile and posts, you appear to be a straight, middle-aged, white, cis male. Congratulations. You hit the privilege jackpot. Your privilege is what lets you say stupid shit like “it’s just group of sounds” while remaining completely oblivious to what it might mean for other people. Sorry to be the one to inform you, but not everything is about you. That word has a long history of hatred and violence. It is not spoken accidentally. The power and pervasiveness of that word and, more importantly, the mentality behind it has caused mental and physical harm to millions of people for generations. It contributes to the belief that people of color are inferior, that they are criminals, bad parents, cheaters, users, liars, and that they do not deserve the same respect and rights as people with fairer complexions. That mentality is the reason why young black men are being gunned down by cops who get away with the bullshit claim that they feared for their lives. That mentality is the reason cops try to reason with white men who are waving guns but will tackle a young black girl at a pool party. That mentality is the reason that Permit Patty, BBQ Becky and Pool Patrol Paula all thought it was ok to call 911 when an unknown black person entered their white bubble. Even today there was another goddam news story, this time about a CVS manager calling 911 on a 53 year old black woman. If you don’t get it yet, I don’t think you ever will. Using the excuse “I’m just repeating what someone else said” is a pathetic cover to absolve yourself of responsibility. I’m done wasting my time trying to explain decency and respect to a brick wall. And if any of this hurt your feelings, get over it. They’re just words, right? Hell, you probably won't even read this because you're too broken up about John Schnatter being kicked out of his office.

We spend way to much time worrying about what people say.

For one, as has been stated already, his life has hardly been destroyed. He has more money than I will see in my entire life. He probably got a severance package worth more than the combined wealth of every living relative I have.
Two, and let's be clear about this, the man was not fired (or stepped down, or whatever) because he'd suddenly become a raving racist. Anyone on the outside who's paid any attention knew or at the very least suspected that he was and I guarantee that no one that worked with/for him was the least bit surprised. In other words, contrary to his removal, his racism was not breaking news, meaning he was not fired for being a racist.
He was fired because of public perception. This has been the trick of racism since post civil rights, when racism started becoming "taboo." It's all about perception and spin. We don't have to kill racism, we just have to bury it under enough innuendo, euphemism, and double-speak to cover the tracks. See, John Scnatter being a closet racist, a subtle racist was a manageable state of affairs. But dropping N bombs on conference calls, particularly on conference calls about your propensity to drop N bombs on conference calls is something else entirely, a bridge too far. We can no longer look the other way and pretend that a spade isn't a spade.
Which leads to three: racism isn't bad... it's bad for business. The man wasn't removed on principle. He wasn't fired for ethical or moral reasons. It was get rid of him or (really AND) deal with the consequences. This was nothing but bottom line mathematics.
Finally, just to address the whole question of whether the consequences of these people's actions are too severe compared to the offense (racism, me too, etc...), let's not forget that in most cases, in most places, you can be fired for any reason or no reason. Got fired because you're pregnant? Gay? For what you believe (or DON'T)? As retaliation for a complaint about bullying/sexual harassment/assault? No one bats an eyelash. But if you're John Schnatter or Kevin Spacey or Matt Lauer or Charlie Rose or Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby (black people, I had make sure that y'all know we got our own too), or any number of the problematic ass individuals then we wonder if we're doing too much!? Man, Black Twitter ain't even got enough side eye for this...

Deserve? Probably not. I don’t know, but ‘deserve’ is a somewhat useless word. If you get upset over not getting what you deserve, then I’m afraid your going to have a bad run at life. Reality doesn’t often conform to our notion of what people deserve. Though reality does correspond better to the notion of actions & consequences and that’s what happening here.

Oh and you could have gotten your point across without actually using the word yourself.

Perhaps someone young and still dumb could be absolved but a man who has been in business as long as he has is aware of the consequences and thought he was above them.

He deserves everything he loses.

This was not his first extremist comment, and I dare say that it will not be his last. Yes, his pattern deserved it.

He walked away with $50 million. I hardly think his life is destroyed.

I think “ whole life being destroyed “ is a bit much. He can go on as a racist asshole with the millions he made selling shitty pizza.

Ive been here 3 days and I don't think I've seen more than 1 black person , a 60'ish male . I havent seen very many different ppl at all really , certainly no local females of any age !

Well the conference call was being made to help him curb his racist comments, and he made one during it.. so I figure everyone lost hope in him. He also stepped down without much argument, so he probably realized there wasn't much hope either.

What he did was like sexually harassing a coworker while everyone is in a HR meeting discussing sexual harassment in the workplace. It'd be terms for dismissal.