A friend of mine got an adorable puppy that was all black. As a joke, I suggested he name his dog Spook. I was just kidding. Playing around with the idea of people who name their black dogs a certain other word. The joke went right over his head and he named it Spook.
How exactly did Paki come to be a racial slur? I mean it’s just a portion of the name of the country itself. Intrinsically I don’t see how it is different than calling citizens of the United Kingdom “Brits”, and that’s not considered racist by anyone. Then again Japs/Nips is also just a shortened version of the country name and both have always been racial slurs as far as I know.
But Paki is even more similar to “Brits” when you factor in that unlike Japanese, Pakistani is not an ethnic group, and the name of the country is itself just formed by abbreviations of the regions of India that were merged into Pakistan.
It’s largely a matter of intent. Nobody says “Goddam stinking pommie Brit stinkard wankers,” but, rather, “Oh, I’ve a couple of friends who are Brits.” If people used it in the former way more often, it would become a slur.
I once knew a Scot who insisted that “Jock” was an offensive slur, every bit as bigoted as “nigger.” I think he’s full of prunes; today, at least, Jock is like Brit: amiable and good-natured.
“Yank” for American sometimes crosses that line. When they spray-paint “Yankee go home” on the embassy wall, it is a slur. When an affable bloke says, “Oh, you Yanks and your goofy superhero movies!” he’s just being saucy.
Someone once tried to convince me that “Ami” for American was “fightin’ words.” I said hogwash.
(Years ago, a friend wanted to know how to say “American” in Spanish. We told him it was “Maricon.” He went around the whole day saying, “Soy mucho grande Maricon!” At quitting time, we told him what it really meant…)
Naw, I say all my bigoted statements on purpose bitch! 
But I did have one whopper of a close call. I was on vacation at the beach. I saw a nice family also on the beach. It was a man, two women, and and a 8 year old girl, give or take. The adults were in their late 20’s give or take. Seemed like a nice family. Figure it was the husband, wife, and the sister of one or the other.
Well, they are on the beach taking pictures of each other. I can tell they are just taking snapshots and of course they aren’t all in the picture at the same time. Well, I offer to take their picture for them. This way, they can all be in the pic at the same time. Also, I am pretty good at taking good pictures so not only will they all be in the pic, it will be a good pic.
So, after getting everybody in the right place, things framed right, and waiting for the right time to take the pic I need to do the “say cheese!” thing for them to smile.
But, having taken many a photo I hate the “say cheese” thing. So, my mind searches for an alternate phrase. After some mental processing, it comes up with something that makes sense to me. Now, I am going to tell you what I almost said first, and then why I almost said it.
I almost said “Say Watermelon!” I was on the start of the W when my brain finally went STOOOOPPPPP. I think you can guess the ethnicity of the family.
Thank God I caught it. I’d hate to think they would forever remember their nice vacation to the beach as the time that racist bastard on the beach told em to “say watermelon!”
Why “say watermelon”? I recalled my childhood. Every time we vacationed on the beach when I was a kid we HAD to have a watermelon with us. Didn’t matter how much it cost (even as a little kid I often thought “that seems kinda pricey” and we werent exactly rolling in the dough). Or that we often had to drive miles out of the way to get one. And, for that matter, us kids weren’t that keen on watermelons in the first place. Hell, as adults, I don’t think myself or my sibblings even eat watermelon. And neither did my parents once we became adults.
The whole we gotta have a watermelon when we go to the beach has always been a bit of a mystery to me. But, when my brain was searching for “whats says BEACH!” it logically dug up “watermelon”.
At least this time I dodged a bullet and a family didnt suffer from my stupidity.
And when you use it medically, I’m sure most people don’t have a problem with it, other than it being obsolete. The -tard suffix is never used in that capacity. I don’t know that the latter has ever been acceptable, at least in the sense that “fuck,” “shit” and “cunt” are not acceptable.
As for curse words–all that’s happening is that we are moving from sex and bodily waste functions being unacceptable to words that were used to discriminate against people. Honestly, I think that’s the right direction to go, to pick words that actually hurt people.
You’re totally right, it IS the intent that matters, so demonising the actual word seems a bit pointless.
If a racist absaloutley loathes and despises a particular ethnic group, it doesn’t matter what word he uses, but whats going on in his head.
The overwhelming number of Brits who use the term Paki, use it in a non perjorative sense, because it is less of a mouthful then saying “Pakistani” everytime.
Even a regular Pakistani Doper, when asked on a "Ask the …"thread, said that he didn’t find it offensive.
If an ardent Asian hater is talking to, or about Pakistanis, it doesn’t matter whether or not he calls them Pakis, Pakistanis, Asians or Supreme beings from beyond the sky.
The hatred, and the image, in his mind is just the same.
I have myself been called “Brit” by extremist Irish Republicans in terms dripping with hatred, as an insult.
And they were genuinly surprised when I wasn’t hurt or offended by it.
Because their minds were full of hate for the English (And for Blacks, Asians and Jews amongst others but thats another story).
I realsied their hatred but it didn’t bother me because I’m a Brit and seriously proud of it.
This side of the pond we have a race relations “Industry” that often goes Loony Tunes, by the proffessional “chip on the shoulder”, looking to be insulted, types,
And even more so ,the Whites involved with it, who are desperate to prove how caring and P.C. they are, and how much they empathsise with other ethnic groups.
So much so that they take it upon themselves to feel offended on their behalves, by so called racial slurs to other ethnic groups, that the so called “victims” are unaware of, or find laughable.
I remember many years ago, young children being told not to tell “cannibal” jokes because it was offensive to non white people.
It would be more useful if, rather then trying to censor peoples speech, more effort was devoted to changing the perceptions of ethnic groups in the eyes of the rest of the population.
(Including those of OTHER ethnic minorities, who aren’t by any means less racist then the mainstream in very many cases)
It came to be one the same way any other racial slur came to be one – because it was used that way. There is nothing intrinsically offensive about any racial slur – nigger, wog, spic, chink, gook, or anything else. They become offensive because they are used offensively.
I have friends and relatives in Britain who have been subject to use of the word “Paki” despite the fact that they have no personal connection to Pakistan. They’re Indians or descended from Indians. “Paki” thus is just being used as an epithet for “dark-skinned” or “South Asian” and not in a friendly way.
One friend of mine, a lawyer in the London area, said that he refused to drive a car any more expensive than a Volkswagen because if he was seen driving an obviously expensive car around London, people on the street would “start calling me a Paki.”
My grandmother and a couple of her sisters would talk about my great aunt Ruth and her fondness for “dago red wine”. I actually thought that was a brand.
This same grandmother gave my parents an albino chihuahua named “Hunky” because she’d heard that’s what black people called white people. No, my parents didn’t rename the dog because they thought it was cute. This was the early 70’s, I was in grade school, and even then I knew the name was wrong. At least the fact they’d misheard the term allowed me to pretend that “Hunky” was a play on the dog’s size.
This might be one of those times you accidentally look bigoted. Maricon is derogatory slang for homosexual.
That was the point! We set the poor bastard up, so he went around all day saying “I’m a great big queer!” when he thought he was saying “I’m a great big American.” It was a dirty trick.
It was bigoted on purpose…so, I guess, fails the point of the thread…
Here’s one: a co-worker of mine, a black man, was proud of his son. His son was growing up fast. Big kid! I said, without any intent to be racist, “Wow! Won’t be long before he’s climbing up the side of the Empire State Building.”
Ouch… It was intended to refer to the kid’s size, not skin color! I was lucky; my co-worker didn’t take it the wrong way. It was only a couple of days later, when I re-played what I’d said in the privacy of my own mind, that I realized how it could have been taken.