Let’s settle this once and for all. Unless you’ve been called a paki, if you speak the word, you are probably being racist. If someone who has been called paki before is in earshot, whether they admit it or not, they are likely to feel a little offended.
If you’re white, would you feel comfortable calling a black man “nigger”? It’s no different.
I had a boss once drop the phrase “paki shop” into a conversation again. He was probably not racist, but it hurt.
It’s also a safety and trust zone thing. If you’re in my circle of trust, and you’ve never been mistaken (or taken) for a paki before, then you might get away with saying “paki” and I will not mind, or even feel stung for that matter.
On somebody’s blog where my United KKKingdom post was quoted, a non-paki-commenter referred to “paki” as a watered-down “diminutive”. What, like “nigger” perhaps? The fact is, at one time, the word “nigger” was “acceptable” and barely a stone’s throw from the Latin “niger”, meaing “black”. It is not the word itself, but the associations and baggage around a word that imbue it with meaning.
There was recently a case in Britain, where legal precedent was set for the word “paki” being abusive. I can assure you that it’s hurtful, malicious and racist too. If in doubt, don’t say it.
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
Raza 11.05.06 at 7:12 am
I certainly take it as an insult! It’s sad to see some of our *own* people use it freely …
Northwing 11.05.06 at 10:45 pm
Hi Shahid,
I think the word “Paki” is an insult everywhere including places in the UK where Asians aren’t present, and deservedly so. Do you use the term yourself though? I ask this because I have friends who often use the word ‘nigger’ between themselves and I have used it jokingly and in context with them. I’d never say the word out of context, and essentially that means I don’t use it if they aren’t around but this point intrigues me.
If we use words ourselves but prevent others from using the same words, then what gives? I’m not proposing an entymological discussion here, but it’s a bit ironic isn’t it?
The other thing is that if I’m honest, white ‘racist’ names, like honkey, marble, snowflake, whatever don’t offend me at all. I doubt most white people are offended by these names either. I don’t know why, but the English have never been offended by name calling - Sassenachs and whatever else included.
I think we need to take the heat out of a lot of this language, take the power out of it. Though there’s an injustice at the heart of why we use terms like ‘Paki’, the word also needs reclaiming.
There’s no reason why it can’t mean something positive and only people like you can do that.
Northwing 11.05.06 at 10:56 pm
Oops - meant “etymological”. When I said people like you, I also implied everyone else, but it’s all about authenticity.
shahid 11.05.06 at 11:38 pm
There are of course two sides to the old argument, which we probably don’t have time for here. Some say to use the word, or to “reclaim” it in effect, is a kind of irony and reduces the power to shock. Others know that when someone calls them “nigger” or “paki”, it is meant to demean, to provoke, to insult and to hurt.
You will no doubt have noticed that I have used the word in the title of my blog. In this instance, it is of course, irony. I am taking the abuser’s sobriquet for ALL “pakis” nowadays and reversing it.
I also use the term amongst brown friends and a small, trusted circle. Anyone outside that circle, using that word, would make me feel uncomfortable.
Words like “honkey” have little or no power because they are rarely, if ever, accompanied by a boot to the face, as has happened to people I know. including close members of family.
Thankfully, I’ve not been booted to the face, though I have had my nose broken with a fist. It has always been a derogatory term because it is not descriptive and it is clearly meant to hurt the minority.
I don’t think words like “paki” or “nigger” or “yiddo” will ever become positive, and I would rather that the delineation and denigration of people on the basis of ethnicity became a thing of the past.
Ahmed 11.06.06 at 12:14 am
Its strange though in the US I have heard people using the word “Paki” and I havent seen anyone get offended I think it is more of a UK thing here in the US its more like a short form to refer to Pakistanis
shahid 11.06.06 at 12:46 am
Yes, locale is a factor too. I noticed on my many visits to the Great Satan (whoops, came over all fundamentalist there, slap wrist, I mean America of course), I heard the word “paki” used nonchalantly by brown-skinned Americans.
It is a peculiarly UK thing. As I say, associating the “smell of brown leather, it blended in with the weather” with the word gives it too much negative energy.
(For those of you struggling with the obscure reference, that’s from The Jam’s “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight”. One of the finest songs about London ever written - along with “That’s Entertainment” of course…)
Sarah Hague 11.06.06 at 1:11 pm
Okay, I have a couple of questions. Do these phrases come across as racist or insulting?
1. “Fancy a chinky for dinner, love?”
2. “I’m just going to the paki shop, need anything?”
I might just say that I live in France and we have neither Chinese restaurants (they are Vietnamese) or shops run by Pakistanis. There are, however, many immigrants from Algeria and Morocco whose young men are known collectively as ‘les beurs’ which is back-to-front (’verlans’) for les Arabes.
shahid 11.06.06 at 1:55 pm
Yes. They’re both racist and insulting. My wife and I say “fancy a Chinese takeaway?”. It’s laziness to say “chinky” and unforgivable.
As for “paki shop” - I have already made it clear that I find it insulting - and stopped respecting a former boss for this very turn of phrase. It’s not a “paki shop”. Why refer to it as a “paki shop”? Do you hate and fear brown-skinned people? Why not use the term “corner shop” or “grocer” or “newsagent”.
Is it better to use a pejorative than to be accurate?
With less anger, I would say that “paki shop” implies brown people running it - it sells groceries, cigarettes and papers and is open until late. But 7-11 was no different, and that wasn’t a “paki shop”, was it? It’s just laziness and racist. I have a shop run by Pakistanis near my home. I call it “Buy Wise”. Because that’s the name of the bloody shop. I used to live near a shop owned and run by Indians. I called it “Pinky’s”. Because that was the name of the fucking shop. Anyone who says “paki shop” is being lazy and racist and if they have manners and/or a conscience, should stop using such terminology and re-route that part of the brain that accepts that brown-skinned people are lesser than white-skinned people. Because it’s a long road, but that’s what it boils down to.
Our use and acceptance of such language is a clear giveaway on entrenched post-colonial attitudes towards the lesser mind of the dark hordes.
Sarah Hague 11.06.06 at 2:52 pm
But people are lazy in their speech. I agree they can be lazy without being racist or insulting, but lazy they will be.
I suppose that much of an insult is not so much stated as inferred, due to historical and cultural references. As you said, too, it depends on whether it’s followed by a boot.
There was a big discussion recently on Colin Randall’s old blog in the Telegraph about whether ‘Frogs’ was an insulting term for the French. The conclusion was, it depends on the situation and how it’s said.
shahid 11.06.06 at 3:24 pm
“Pinky’s” and “Buy-Wise” are a syllable less than “paki shop” and far less racist.
I’d argue that “Frog”, “Pom” and “Oz” are in the third division of racial slurs, compared to the premiership of “Nigger”, “Yid” and “Paki”.
I’m sorry, but no Telegraph poll (of predominantly white people) is going to ever make it OK for a white person to say “paki” - any more than they would say “nigger”.
Why use a pejorative to refer to a person’s skin colour anyway? If there were Jamaicans running it, would you call it a “nigger” shop or a “wog shop”?
The accompanying boot is what has sullied these words and they have all the baggage of colonialism to get past too.
moflard 11.07.06 at 9:11 am
@ shahid
“…but I bash pakis and niggers and chinks…”
Your words - and not in the context of a close circle of friends allowing you the use of these terms but the big wide internet. Be careful here - it looks a bit like you have one rule for others, and another for yourself. (I don’t think it’s true btw but it looks bad)
“Paki” or the other racist slurs (bog trotter’s my favourite) are closely related to the jokes one community tells about the other - a mechanism of belittling and negating the threat posed by that other community - and of shoring up the self-image of the name callers. But what if you are raised in a mixed community? If most of your friends are (lets say) “niggers” or “pakis” and use these terms amongst themselves, it’s naturaly going to creep into your language too, and won’t be at core, a racist slur. Except when you meet people you don’t know and it’s use will cause offense. For example my friends tell me Irish jokes (I kind of collect them) and they’re funny. A stranger tells an Irish joke near me - and my reaction is completely different - I’m a tad offended. Of course it then turns out the guys name is O’Shaunnesy and we end up swapping jokes - and laughing (in a fond way) at the English.
So the terms are racist, but their being taken back by the offended populations complicates things. Sometimes they’re racist, sometimes they’re not - it depends not only on situation but speaker and audience.
shahid 11.07.06 at 11:51 am
Much of the time in my recent posts, I have addressed the content to a certain group of people, not my core audience, but with my core audience standing alongside me.
That core audience initially comprised a close circle of friends (I should have thought about what might happen if my blog became much more widely read, as it is today, but I didn’t. I shudder about some of my earlier posts…)
If I meet people I don’t know, I won’t use such racist terms. My friends have head me use racist terms, but know that I am profoundly anti-racist - none of that makes it OK for me to use such terms widely. You’re quite right to pick up on my blog being read by many outside that circle, and you’re quite right to say that it looks bad. Given that the title ofmy blog from way back when has been “Suspect Paki”, how do I reconcile that with my “rules”.
I would like to add another qualifier. The audience towards which some of my recent posts have been directed (non-brown, mainly white British, a tad Islamophobic, not necesaraily through any fault of their own) are categorically not allowed to use such terms. They are not allowed that comfort zone. If one has suffered years of abuse as a result of one’s colour, one is entitled not to hear such terms. They have some atoning to do. They can’t say “paki shop” because not so long ago, they oppressed and murdered and plundered and looted in my forefathers’ homeland as colonial masters. The current generation has been guilty of institutional and personal racism, which with the weight of history behind it - and the force of a fist or a boot before it, and without the balance of oppression against them as a mitigating factor, makes it wholly inappropriate for them at any time to use racist slurs.
I don’t generally say “paki shop”, not even amongst, erm, “pakis”. Why the hell should they? Laziness is an insulting excuse.
Your last para is spot on.
Northwing 11.07.06 at 11:24 pm
I hear what you say Shahid, but your comment:
“They can’t say “paki shop†because not so long ago, they oppressed and murdered and plundered and looted in my forefathers’ homeland as colonial masters.”
is disingenuous. It’s a disenfranchisement of the huge majority of ethnic white working class Britons who benefited relatively little from their masters conquests several generations ago.
The notion that the average white British man owes the commonwealth and wider world any form of recompense through the ’sins of the fathers’ analogy is entirely fatuous. Firstly because it isn’t actually accurate, and secondly because it’s not morally acceptable to define ones own identity in terms of being a victim of a faceless mass of 50 million or so common people.
You could even say that to heap the ’sins of the fathers’ on a whole nation is racist in itself. Make your case at the establishment, yes, but don’t deny ethnic white people their own right to a traditional, proud identity, whatever the past. Many have lost their religion, true. Some like me are proud to call ourselves Christians (woefully unobservant ones at times - but trying), and we share many elements of our faith with Muslims.
Our historical journey here defines who we are now. We can’t change that journey, nor should we be beaten into submission and whimpering marginalisation over it.
The country of your own families origin has been the scene of some barbarous acts of tribalism. People fight wars amongst themselves and have fought wars against each other throughout history. The British fought wars better than most others for a time. So what?
I’m bloody proud to be a white Englishman, and equally proud of the non-white self-affirmed English men and women I know. We share one thing in common; overall we’re proud of our country’s journey through time, our own contribution to it, and its contribution to the wider world. We know about the blips. We struggle with foreign policy. Our world views are dictated to a large extent by our membership of a historic family of nations who are our kinsmen. We’re not over the moon, collectively, but we share a ‘we’ sentiment nevertheless.
We too are victims of the establishment, but we stand proud. Please don’t tell me that our two causes are irreconcilable. Culture and world creed are the difficult issues here, not race per se.
Northwing 11.07.06 at 11:37 pm
I just wanted to add to this (apologies for rambling).
I believe the state’s well-meaning but ideologically flawed repression of our own native ‘English’ identity (England=British, unless that is you live in devolved Scotland or Wales), accounts for a lot of the reactionary xenophobia we see rising today.
English people have been ‘generalised, sparsed and equalised’, to quote an information modelling term.
The harder aspects of multiculturalism; cultural particularisation and reinforcing separate communities in particular, have a lot to answer for . . .
shahid 11.07.06 at 11:54 pm
Dear Eric, you’re absolutely right, and I feel humbled by the sincerity and beauty of your comment. I unreservedly apologise, part of my battle against racism (and I was having this conversation only today with some friends) is my utter belief in the inherent decentness of the white working class.
For what it’s worth, I prefer the person who calls me paki, but who would defend me if I was oppressed, than the one who claims to uphold fair values, but slyly sends emails containing racist poems for publication on various websites, including Boris Johnson’s, if you catch my drift.
You’re right, you and I have much more in common than not, and our causes are not irreconcilable. And the term you use in your second comment applies to Muslims too, so yes, again, another common point of reference.
Thank you for correcting me.
Northwing 11.08.06 at 12:48 am
Peace Shahid, and glad I dropped by..
moflard 11.08.06 at 1:12 am
@ Northwing
That was a truly eloguent and elegant expression of your position. Nobody chooses their history, and ownership of the past should not equate to personnal guilt.
DE 11.09.06 at 1:11 am
So one aspect of the N word is that it is specifically used by blacks between themselves to recognise the brand mark on their own backs. Sometimes it means “whatever you are now, your roots are the same as me: as someones pet”.
As this is fairly unique to blacks, its rather hard to share the term out. I think the historica journey point is well captured in recent replies.
MC 11.09.06 at 4:17 am
Good post!
I tried to explain this to a mate who says he dont mind being called a paki by anyone and think it means nothing. But just as you’ve explained it and how your boss once said ‘Paki-shop’ and how you felt is pretty much how i explained it to my mate.
blondy 11.15.06 at 4:21 pm
comming in a bit late in the discussion, writing from sweden. heres are some quick thoughts on the issue.
Paki has got something of an aquivalent in sweden as in the way many swedes use the almost medievel “turk” as designating manily arab people. Also “svartskalle”, which means a darkhaird person, wich here generaly is percieved as an imigrant of som sort. The bottom line is that its not the samething for white and darker people to use the names, which is what some mainstreem multiculruralist claim we will achieve by adopting these names in a conscious way. They often point to the example of gay people, who here in sweden call them selfs fagots and which (at least in the media) it is claimed not to have demeaning connotation to it anymore. It would thence be a statement of selfimpowerment to adopt the hateful vocabulary of racists. However in this strategy, however ironic, the “form” of the racist posture persists and it becomes dependent on it. The result is twofold: white society can carelesly proceed with its racsist praxis in all it guises having done away with the “issue”, while immigramts on the other hand belive this normalization is the process of them being “accepted” once and for all. Secondly, this does then not possible for all imigrants, since it works on the basis that imigrants start making distinctions between themselfs as being more or less “swedish”(in this case), or to put it the other way arround: am i sufficiently swedish to call myself a turk without taking offence?
This is plainly blackmail, the problem i in this way privatised, and it makes imigrants, as is obviously clear, start making what relly comes down to racist distinctions among them selfs.
Now, there is ofcourse rascism among imigrants, but in this way white people exploit it.
i hate dirty stinking pakis 11.16.06 at 7:23 am
fuck you you dirty stinking paki scum.i spit on your koran,curse allah your not welcome in the uk or anywhere else in the west.the storm is beginning you filthy scumbags.
Paki and proud 11.24.06 at 6:41 pm
I allow my black and asian mates call me paki. its just one of those things that coloured people have in common. Big up the niggers and pakis. I have got white friends, but they know if they ever used the term ”nigger” or ”paki”, they’ll get their head kicked in. Suppose thats life when your from inner city birmingham. the ethnic minorities are takin over anyway. you can’t take it then oh well!! LIVE WITH IT. all you racist white bastards deserve to die. come down birmingham and il kill you myself!!!!!!! nuff love to my niggers and pakiz!!!!!!!!xxxxxxx
One Scotland - many cultures 11.27.06 at 12:00 am
I myself am very much not racist. I have friends of many races. I remeber one time i was at a football match with a few of my friends, one of them being pakistani. It was Raith Rovers against Dunfermline, us supporting our local team raith rovers. Now dont ask me why but dunfermline are called `the pars` and there is a chant, said by many white non-dunfermline fans that goes “i`d rather be a paki than a par” My pakistani friend shouted that out during the match, he laughed, i laughed so did a few others, does that make me and any white or non-pakistani person who laughed racist? I suppose it depends on wether who was laughing with him or at him.
Anyway reading through all of the posts i have seen only one person who truly isnt racist, and that is northwing. Alot of the rest of the posts have racist views and frankly i dont have time for that, i`m beginging to wonder why i even made the time to post this. It just sickens me when i hear or read things like what `paki and proud` posted “all you racist white bastards deserve to die. come down birmingham and il kill you myself!!!!!!! ” How can he possibly have the nerve to call other people racist when he comes out with that? Theres is no room in the world for people who come out with comments like that and i dont care what colour or race they maybe, they should be hung. They are the type of people who breed hate and racism into our world and we dont need that anymore, especially at this fragile point in time.
And as for `i hate dirty stinking pakis` comment, i see that as a pityful joke and whoever posted that deserves to burn in hell
I was going to end my post with peace and love to everyone, but it sounds too ironic after saying racist people should burn.
Alba 11.27.06 at 3:05 am
I am aware of the vicious way in which the word “Paki” has been used. But I’m also aware of the fact that the word PAKISTAN is an acronym for the 8 regions of Pakistan. But I really don’t see how the word is any more offensive than calling me a “Brit” rather than a Britton, or an Englishman or a UK Citizen or whatever crap we’d get called if we were bothered about this political correct retardation.
(Although I have a huge amount of empathy for non-Pakistanis to be called Paki’s, as I would hate to be called a frog or a kraut)
Alba 11.27.06 at 3:09 am
One Scotland - many cultures Says:
“It just sickens me when i hear or read things like what `paki and proud` posted “all you racist white bastards deserve to die. come down birmingham and il kill you myself!!!!!!! †How can he possibly have the nerve to call other people racist when he comes out with that? Theres is no room in the world for people who come out with comments like that and i dont care what colour or race they maybe, they should be hung.”
That’s freedom of speech my ginger friend.
That girl 11.27.06 at 10:34 pm
Its rude and hurtful to call someone a paki, and yes its racist.
One Scotland - many cultures 11.27.06 at 10:46 pm
Haha, my cousin is the ginger one actually.
Replying to Alba
You cant just pass it off as freedom of speech, that`s like someone saying “fuck you all, you paki fucks, get back to where you belong”
its`s crossing the line of freedom of speech and becoming racist hate mongering. And the next time some pakistani person is offended by the term `paki` can they be told, “hey, it`s just freedom of speech”?
they are here to kill us 12.01.06 at 12:17 pm
who cares if pakis get insulted by bein called pakis? they are the enemy and are invading our country. Was anyone bothered about vietnamese people bein called gooks in the war?
doesnt bother me if someone calls me a brit!!
We need to get these stinkin horrible murderein cunts out of our country soon as.
Cant wait for the civil war am gonna take out hundreds of the fuckin scumbags before i go down
KILL ALL THE PAKIS
stoke glenn 01.06.07 at 1:25 am
All muslims are over sensitive to any form of criticism, the term Paki is no different from that of an uzbek or a kazak or an afghan, stan simply means land. Paki means pure, in england we cant say paki, however we can call somebody any of the names previously mentioned plus others tajik, kurd, etc..
The Pakistan people in the UK have taken up a jehad aginst this country, Jehad doesnt necessarily need to result in violence all it needs to do is go against the system with its ultimate aims being benificial to the muslim people.
Wearing of veils, flying union flags, christmas decorations they are all jehadi acts taking place by members of the islamic communitie.
Theres no real reason to worry, when you consider that Pakistan is no longer food sufficiant, it rely’s on imported foods to feed its increasing numbers. The reluctance from muslim clerics and scholers in Pakistan and the preachings of vertue by outbreading any other religion as placed Pakistan in a perilous situation. There is the malthusian school of thought in which once the earths carrying capacity gets breached nature takes care of itself, Earthquakes, famine, etc.. all consequences of overpopulation.
So be patient follow British people the Paki community may be offended if they are after all Called ‘pure’ and they may have absolutly no genuine intentions of getting involved in any meaningfull diologue regarding this so called multi racial society. Let the islamic community do what it does once the oil runs out in the next 60 years they can go back to being Bedoin goat herders, let them have some fun for a while, untill they all start starving and dying and dropping of like flies.
Dreamer ES 09.13.07 at 3:40 am
Until you stinking pakis return to your home country you will remain stinking pakis, as in the west we don’t accept people with poor hygiene. That also holds true for seventy people living in the same 1-bed b&b. With all the free benefits including free houses and cars, surely you can afford deodorants. More UK citizens can’t afford deodorants in comparison with you stinking scrounging freeloader wankers who have never done anything in their lives to better anything, letting the proper English workers of the country pay over 25% of their hard earned cash to support your lazy stinking arses while you soak up the money and transfer it to your stinking piss hole country.
Against Dreamer ES 09.13.07 at 12:12 pm
I dont know what dreamers talking about, Asian families hold the highest income above whites in the UK and US.
Theyre the highest earners
wooly 11.03.07 at 12:41 pm
so is it ok to refer to australians as aussies? i really dont see a difference, its just the first part of the name.
IH8Livapool 11.04.07 at 9:08 pm
Erm it kinda rascit 2 say dat get me b. if ur a paki u can say 2 anava paki but non-pakis cant say nofin :s lol yer it da same as nigga realy means da same fingg get me, omadays i so h8 livapooolll i wana cum london man
IH8Livapool 11.04.07 at 9:12 pm
wat da hell man y y’all bein all rascit 4 wats da point n yeh m onli eya cuz m bored. whites black asians browns olives greens lol wer da same at d end ov d day but born in diff places lol n all dem rascits owt der need a hell ov a lyf
Neon 12.18.07 at 3:00 pm
i dont see the big deal with someone calling you a paki or a nigger or whatever the fuck they can come up with…obviously they see outsiders as a threat the same as animals its a basic instinct…unless they get agressive you should probably just ignore it because im pretty sure if a british lad goes to school in pakistan or any other middle eastern public school or comunity they wont be friendly either with open hands…. Generalizing here…
pakiiiiiiiiii 11.07.08 at 4:43 pm
the reason why paki is more insulting than brit or aussie. is that brits and aussies werent beaten up for being white or stabbed.
the word aussie was not put up in graffiti on awall.
they werenot offered a job cos they were white.