Abbreviated nationalities or racist remarks?

Never called any mates "nigger" in my life---and I am Black. I've heard others use it to each other. If they can accept it, cool. I see it as demoralising to them---considering the attachment of slavery to the word.

but isn't it supposed to be about the opposite. subverting the original meaning attached to it and turning it into a word of not necesarily pride, but connection? like gay people calling themselves queer?

So who was in the wrong?

I know it is supposed to be, but it also comes down to personal preference. Personally, I'm not comfortable using the word.

It generally depends on who originally used them, and for what purpose. Brit and Yank have never been used with the same derogatory intent, or within the same context of subjugation, as those other words.

That said, where do we stand on "canuck" these days?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHHAHAHA oh my.

Sorry, I'm not dan, but "brit" and "yank" are terms denoting nationality, whereas "paki" and "chink", although on the surface are contractions of "pakistani" and "chinaman", they are in common usage as terms denoting race. IE a "paki" in common (too bloody common IMO) usage refers to *anyone* of a certain ethnicity, no matter where they actually come from.

In the 1980's I spent four years as the only white member of a bhangra group. I never heard the term "paki" used, never used it myself, and never would have considered using it FWIW.

Two recent letters to the Herald that made me nearly explode when I read them, followed by the next day's responses:

The HERALD 18th June 2003

'PAKI' IS NOT A RACIALLY OFFENSIVE TERM

THE decision of the learned Lord Justice Robin Auld and Justice John Goldring in the High Court in England that the word Paki - short for Pakistani - is "a slang expression which is racially offensive" (June 17) is absurd. Pak-i-stan literally means "Pak-land" or "land of the Paks" - just as Afghanistan is the land of the Afghans and Scotland is the land of the Scots. Due to a quirk in English popular speech, a person from Pakistan is generally called a Paki instead of a Pak - in the very same manner that Americans often address Scots as "Scotty".

The letters PAK are an acronym for Punjab, Afghanistan, and Kashmir, from parts of which the present state was assembled in 1947. The name itself was chosen by Muhammed Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League when they determined to separate themselves from India at independence. It was not foisted upon its unwilling inhabitants by racist "Brits". Hence the assertion that the term Paki is "racially offensive" is founded on nothing other than the ignorance of the unlearned.

Br1an D Finch,
Glasgow.

Monday's conviction of soccer yob Sean Ratcliffe for using the word "Paki" was a great day for the race-fixation industry, and a disaster for British race relations. No doubt champagne corks popped at British National Party and Anti-Nazi League headquarters - both groups and their thoroughly unpleasant tagalongs will milk this verdict for their own ends.

Let's be clear about this, anyone who physically or verbally abuses another because of their creed, colour, or nationality should be jailed and the key dropped down the first available drain. But there is a big difference between words such as "Paki" and those words specifically designed to be derogatory (eg, "nigger", "Jocko").

"Paki" is derived from "Pakistan", which in Sanskrit means "The Land of the Pure", pure in this instance meaning pure in spirit (in keeping with the Muslim ideals Pakistan was founded upon). So what is so derogatory about calling someone "pure"? Especially in Scotland, where "pure dead brilliant" is a national catchphrase?

If Paki is criminally insulting, we have turned into a nation of dysfunctional hyper-sensitives belied by our addiction to the array of cruelty-masquerading-as-humour programmes cramming the TV schedules.

This verdict is symptomatic of the ham-fisted manner in which we "care" for minorities - ethnic or otherwise - in the UK. Years of apathetic inaction followed by knee-jerk overreaction that solves little and keeps the hate pot boiling. Look at Northern Ireland to see where this path ultimately leads - people united only by the mutual mistrust that stymies their potential.

Sometime there has to be an end to anything that can remotely be construed as "race" being used as a political football. Why not now?

M4rk Boyle,
Johnstone.

The HERALD 19th June 2003

'PAKI' IS OFFENSIVE

Messrs Finch and Boyle give neat derivations for the word Pakistan (Letters, June 18). A pity they contradict each other so neatly, but perhaps they are both right. Where they are both adrift from reality is their dismissal of the idea that the word Paki bears a racially offensive message in our society. A friend held a similar view until recently, when she thought to ask two Pakistani people how they perceived the word. She was horrified to learn how insulting they found it.

It is, of course, not the word, but how it is used, that matters and that makes it an insult. "Nigger" derives from the same word root as the country Niger, the Spanish "negro", and the French "noir". Mr Boyle says "nigger" was "specifically designed to be derogatory". In fact it was for hundreds of years simply a local familiar word meaning "black" - hence the name of the dog in the film Dambusters.

But the way the word "nigger" was used, and the condescending and insulting values of those who most used it and their attitudes and actions towards black people, made it into an insult. Consider how obnoxious young people instinctively make descriptive words into insults - spastic and asylum-seeker are recent examples, moron and cow are older. The words refer to people they feel superior to.

Consider how the word Paki is used, and by whom. Ask your friends of Pak-istani origin what they think. The most likely response will be an embarrassed avoidance of an answer, because they know how much the truth can hurt.

Mr Finch suggests that the rest of us are suffering from "the ignorance of the unlearned", and Mr Boyle applies a string of insulting terms to us as a nation. I much wish to respond to their insults in kind, but I believe that calling people names is wrong.

Ew4n McVicar,
Linlithgow.

THE term "Paki" is commonly used to refer not only to Pakistanis but also to Indians, Bangladeshis, etc - in fact anyone appearing to originate ethnically from the region of the Indian subcontinent, whether or not they were born there. So it is clearly a racial rather than a national characterisation.

The football chant in question - "You're just a town full of Pakis" - is clearly intended to be derogatory, like all such chants. Oldham was derided on the grounds that it has a substantial ethnically Asian population. If that's not racist then I don't know what is.

Simon G4y,
Glasgow.

How exactly did the two orginal letter writers make sense of the "I'd rather be a paki than a Turk" chant, with which sections of the English football crowd have chosen to goad their new most hated international rivals?  Did they consider that the offence of
scrawling "Pakis Out"  across a front door is somewhat mitigated by the admirable restraint displayed in the choice of colourless language?  Odd indeed that the term is thrown at anyone with south Asian colouring rather than just those from Pakistan.

To attempt to prove their case by pointing to the derivation of the word, as both correspondents did, seems jaw-droppingly naive.  One doesn't have to be a professor of bloody sociolinguistics to understand that words are not solely defined by their eytmology.  A cursory glance at any page of a dictionary is enough to demonstrate that.  They exist within a cultural context that imbues them with a myriad of connotations and subtleties of meaning. As Mr McVicar said, otherwise you end up with 'nigger' being a word that's fine and dandy for anyone to throw around.

The situation in the cafe with the interfering woman is practically a totally separate issue, having more in common with the reclamation of 'nigger' and 'queer' etc. I agree that it's slightly different, because those who said 'paki' were white, but they were his friend and context is everything.

This is not true anywhere but Star Trek.

So I'd say that anyone who realistically argues that Paki is acceptable to use (and I'm in no way accusing Eugene of that - I accept he was just making an observation) is either a fool or unconvincingly attempting to hide some inherent racism within.

I suppose on one level, you could see black people who call each other "nigger" or asians who call each other "paki" as "reclaiming language" much the way that gay people use "queer" or "dyke" as some kind of empowerment think. I personally don't think that works - language is very powerful, and once a term has become loaded, I don't necessarily think that it's a good idea to try and "reclaim" them, as it has just as much a chance of diminishing the reaction to the -Ism as it does reclaiming the words.

Pakistanis do not call themselves Pakis. so it's not alright.

I gather it's kind of all right to call Pakistanis Paks, but I wouldn't be one hundred per cent certain of that.

personally I just add the word "bastard" onto the end of all nationalities to make a handy term of racist abuse.

cuz brits and yanks were the imperialists and pakis and chinks were the imperialised
-- cinniblount (littlejohnnyjewe...), October 23rd, 2003.

This sort of looking at Asians as inevitable victims and as our peaceloving little brown/yellow friends is so condescending and irritating.

The Chinese have done more than their fair share of "imperialising." Remember the Chinese "EMPERORS?" Economically, militarily, in every way the British or other western powers did it to them.

You call Brits Brits with no problem because they don't mind being called Brits. It's about context and intention and reception (as has been abundantly pointed out here). But just because one is temporarily in the dominant position isn't a justification. Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans often refer to denizens of the U.S. as "gringos" with no pleasant connotations at all. That's not 'okay' because the U.S. has had military/cultural/economic dominance. Or if it is, you've opened a can of proverbial worms.

This does fail the nigger test.

Except, in Britain, Pakistani lads sometimes do refer to each other as Pakis, more so than you'd hear a black Britain refer to himself or another black guy as a "nigger/nigga".

White South African crowned first 'Mr. Africa'
Friday, October 24, 2003 Posted: 9:31 AM EDT (1331 GMT)

CNN
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- South Africa's first male beauty contest has crowned its inaugural "Mr. Africa" -- a white bank employee who sported a bullfighter's costume to celebrate his Spanish heritage.

Theuns Prinsloo, 22, beat some 3,000 other contestants at the pageant, the first to showcase what organizers say is the diversity of the modern African man, officials said Thursday.

Prinsloo's victory was greeted with a surprised headline in the Johannesburg Star: "First Mr. Africa is a white male dressed as a bullfighter!"

Prinsloo has a Spanish great-grandmother. About a tenth of South Africa's 45 million people are white.

"Everyone born in Africa is an African," Prinsloo said Thursday.

Pageant organizer Carolyn Baldwin said: "Contestants had to demonstrate knowledge of their forefathers' origins and know each others' cultures. The theme of the whole event is about uniting all Africans."

"Theuns showed remarkable potential in his Spanish bullfighter's costume. He epitomizes a young African in Africa today," Baldwin added.

Prinsloo was awarded $7,100 of clothes, a voucher for a photographic portfolio and a hamper of beauty products by the mainly white judging panel.

The first runner-up in the contest held earlier this month was black. The second runner-up was of Indian descent.

you americans alright with that? you caucasians? you europeans?

is this another one that needs closing?

asking beforehand

Blowing it up might be a better idea.