Were you racist in 1984?

[waterloo blue]

Sounds like Melbourne,there's been a few incidents in the past couple of years.
When I first came to Australia the cricket commentators called the Pakistani team the Paki's,which at the time was jaw dropping to me.
Tony Greig was the most persistant and he should of known better as he'd lived in England in the 70's,but then again he is South African.

I get to Australia every couple of years and as much as I love the place, the inherent and quite open racisim is astonishing. I come across this in the major cities, (Sydney and The Manchester of the South AKA Melbourne). I can only imagine what it's like in the sticks. still probably no worse than the bible belt though...

I was in the doctors a couple of weeks ago in Sydney,the receptionist was speaking to an elderly woman about which doctor she wanted to see and she replied "Dr.Goldman,not the Chinese one or the Pommy.She asked me and I said any,I saw Dr.Yong and mentioned the scene I'd witnessed,he said happens all the time,poor Dr.Goldman's run off his feet.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

It's offensive because ''Paki'' is used as a derogatory term aimed at anyone from the Indian sub continent, the middle east, northern Africa, rather than specifically people from Pakistan.

It would be like someone from India calling all white people from Europe ''Taffies'' or ''Jocks'' or ''Paddies'', because we all look the same.... don't we?

Calling someone a Paddy may indeed be offensive, but not racist as the Irish are not a race, in the same way calling someone a Scouse twat is not racist.
If an Irish family moved in next door, you wouldn't know they were Irish until you spoke to them. But you know straight away if a ''Paki'' moves in next door because you can see the colour of their skin. But are they from Pakistan? Or India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Egypt, Afghanistan, Nepal etc etc etc etc? That's the difference.

So does it only become racist once the Nationality of the person is known? Not sure I agree with that.

No, what I mean is, a 'Paki' is called a 'Paki' because of the colour of his / her skin, regardless of which country he or she may come from. For example, someone from Sri Lanka will be presumed to be a 'Paki'.
Therefore the term 'Paki' is based solely on ethnicity.

No one from Germany is called a 'Paddy' because they are the same colour as an Irishman / woman. Only people with Irish accents are called 'Paddy's'.
So the term 'Paddy' is based on nationality.

 

[royle]

In 1984 i went to a mixed race school,so i wasn't racist,but those who i knew where i grew up would quite openly use words like coon.

This was around the time where a new breed of comic was coming through,the likes of Alexi sayle and Ben Elton,what was racism was being tackled on TV maybe for the first time.

I was homophobic at that time,gays were not socially accepted back then,even Boy George and George Michael had to pretend to be straight,that's how bad it was,being called gay in at school was probably the ultimate insult,how times have changed.

 

[Challenger1978]

I fail to see why someone from Pakistan being called a Paki is offensive yet we openly call people from Scotland Jocks,Irish Paddies,heaven forbid someone calling me a Brit to my face.Maybe it's because it suits certain peoples agenda

How many times have you been called a Brit (or a dirty fucking Brit) whilst walking down the road?
Suggesting there is some sort of parity between Yank or Jock or Brit and Paki, is either very naive or stubbornly uninformed

I know an Australian fella that uses the word paki all the time and your sort of attitude he can't get his head around. To him paki is just a short hand way of describing someone from Pakistan just like the English are poms to him. BTW this aussie fella holds "Paki" in really high regard because of the shit he went through with them in Somalia during the early 90's when he was in the auzzie army.

Also I have been called a dirty Brit/English bastard not in the UK but abroad and on the net. Hey I can go even better than that my parents were in Egypt (sharm el sheikh) a few years back and were attacked by a group of Bedouins. Screaming at them they were sons of dogs, baby killing British bastards and so on and so on. If it weren't for the local shop owners in the market all jumping in to protect them they could of been seriously hurt or worse.

What I'm trying to get at is, its all about the context of how and where the word is used. Your kind of attitude Ammy is enabling the fuckwits in the world to claim a perfectly good word and make it their own. They've already took ownership of so many and symbols, just don't give them any more. In fact I honestly believe we should be trying to reclaim those lost words and symbols from the fuckwits of the world as they don't deserve to have them.

 

[crystal_mais]

I've Grown up with being called a Paki although I am Indian. I suppose they couldn't tell. To be fair I have always brushed it off as ignorance. There were only about 5 Asians in the whole of my year at secondary school and no more than about 20 in the whole school when I started. This is going back to 1984

There were some quite horrible cunts at school. They were mainly from a council estate environment.
It was quite vicious at some points as some of the people were extremely aggresive about it. It wasn't the Paki bit that annoyed me but more the message around we shouldn't be in this country and should never have arrived and if they had their way. They would burn us all etc. I was born here thank you.
I saw some of these idiots actually terrorise the local asian shop. They never tried it at the local shop owned by the English couple. It was always about treating them a lesson.

Things mellowed as years went on. I got to know some decent English lads who always had my back, their were also more asians at the school. But it was intimidating at first..

What makes me piss is some of the comments I got and still get today "He is a Paki twat, but you're OK. One of us ain't you"

I've seen more of it again over the last few years, especially around North East Manchester.

 

[Anonymous]

A lot of either stubborn or uninformed people in this thread. It's very simple. I don't use the word "******", or "chink" or any other racist terminology. I don't go looking for reasons why it might be ok to use the word. I just accept that there are enough people in the world who find it offensive so I won't use it.

The cultural mitigations only go so far. I lived in Australia a decade ago - got called a Paki once, made it clear that I found the world offensive, and never heard it again. Most of the people i came across already understood that even though it was something which didn't hold negative connotation in their culture, it held negative connotations in enough cultures for them to not use it.

Most of the people who sit around pontificating and questioning why a word is found offensive by a racial minority is either a closet racist or just looking for attention.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

In 1984 i went to a mixed race school,so i wasn't racist,but those who i knew where i grew up would quite openly use words like coon.

This was around the time where a new breed of comic was coming through,the likes of Alexi sayle and Ben Elton,what was racism was being tackled on TV maybe for the first time.

I was homophobic at that time,gays were not socially accepted back then,even Boy George and George Michael had to pretend to be straight,that's how bad it was,being called gay in at school was probably the ultimate insult,how times have changed.

What??? George Michael's gay?????? WTF?????

 

[Scareye]

I've Grown up with being called a Paki although I am Indian. I suppose they couldn't tell. To be fair I have always brushed it off as ignorance. There were only about 5 Asians in the whole of my year at secondary school and no more than about 20 in the whole school when I started. This is going back to 1984

There were some quite horrible cunts at school. They were mainly from a council estate environment. It was quite vicious at some points as some of the people were extremely aggresive about it. It wasn't the Paki bit that annoyed me but more the message around we shouldn't be in this country and should never have arrived and if they had their way. They would burn us all etc. I was born here thank you.
I saw some of these idiots actually terrorise the local asian shop. They never tried it at the local shop owned by the English couple. It was always about treating them a lesson.

Things mellowed as years went on. I got to know some decent English lads who always had my back, their were also more asians at the school. But it was intimidating at first..

What makes me piss is some of the comments I got and still get today "He is a Paki twat, but you're OK. One of us ain't you"

I've seen more of it again over the last few years, especially around North East Manchester.

What's that got to do with it???

 

[Challenger1978]

A lot of either stubborn or uninformed people in this thread. It's very simple. I don't use the word "******", or "chink" or any other racist terminology. I don't go looking for reasons why it might be ok to use the word. I just accept that there are enough people in the world who find it offensive so I won't use it.

The cultural mitigations only go so far. I lived in Australia a decade ago - got called a Paki once, made it clear that I found the world offensive, and never heard it again. Most of the people i came across already understood that even though it was something which didn't hold negative connotation in their culture, it held negative connotations in enough cultures for them to not use it.

Most of the people who sit around pontificating and questioning why a word is found offensive by a racial minority is either a closet racist or just looking for attention.

 

[Anonymous]

A lot of either stubborn or uninformed people in this thread. It's very simple. I don't use the word "******", or "chink" or any other racist terminology. I don't go looking for reasons why it might be ok to use the word. I just accept that there are enough people in the world who find it offensive so I won't use it.

The cultural mitigations only go so far. I lived in Australia a decade ago - got called a Paki once, made it clear that I found the world offensive, and never heard it again. Most of the people i came across already understood that even though it was something which didn't hold negative connotation in their culture, it held negative connotations in enough cultures for them to not use it.

Most of the people who sit around pontificating and questioning why a word is found offensive by a racial minority is either a closet racist or just looking for attention.

Should I know what that means ? I'm not down with the kids when it comes to internet meme's and the like.