Given that possibility, do you think it’s possible not to refer to someone from another country who hasn’t heard the term as either forgetful or ignorant?
Actually that still seems offensive. Getting back to the actual discussion:
Leaving biological terms like homo sapeins out of it, the word is always offensive. And it’s pretty difficult to think of a situation where you couldn’t tell if someone meant homosexual or homo sapiens/habilis/whatever.
I’m guessing you weren’t in the UK, Dutch, Aussie or Kiwi forces, right?
Actually, I don’t think that’s quite right. It’s not used as a slur in the USA because it’s not used at all. I’ve never heard an American use the term. I would say that if an American knows the term at all, he knows it’s a slur.
You’re still on about how ‘unconvincing’ he was, inspite of my post. Care to respond to it(post #27), instead of repeating your allegations again and again?
Wow. Dishonest much? Here’s his post in which he ‘discusses the mental inferiority of certain races’.
It’s his first post, he’s clearly not familiar with board culture, and/or the way arguments are typically presented. He notes in the very opening line that he thinks education is the primary determinant for IQ. The primary thrust of his post is to clarify his position on Indians. Then he says, “Maybe Blacks have slightly lower average”. In his entire post he uses one short sentence, with fewer words than you use to reference it, to ‘discuss the mental inferiority of certain races’. And he prefaces that sentence with a “Maybe”. He ends the post stressing the importance of cultural and environmental factors. Yet you decide it’s ok to throw in a reference to this post to tar him and establish his racist credentials. Good job. Oh but hang on. You’re not done yet. You have feathers in the offing. You claim
First of all, cite?
That post is reproduced below -
How is any part of this post, if you don’t consider the ‘Paki’ a racist slur, as I think you should, otherwise objectionable? Christopher Hitchens regularly got up on stage and said “To get good people to do bad things, you need religion”. Truthseeker2, who considers education a good thing, (see his post above), is clearly making a very similar statement. He’s just restricting the statement to Islam, and tacking on an example. It is dishonest to imply that he’s talking about ‘crazy muslims’ , and is therefore using ‘Paki’ as a racist slur.
Boy do your analogy skills ever need some work.
As will forces from all countries - I’d bet my house on it being the case.
But he was ignorant of its use in the british military.
No, Marley, homo in reference to a gay person is not always offensive.
It doesn’t even sound appropriate.
That’s news to me, but I think this is a separate isue: I think you’re talking about reclaiming a word. That’s not the same thing as a word that has more than one meaning. Reclaiming a word is an effort to remove the sting of the slur, and that’s not the situation with “Paki.”
Sigh. What part of ‘Paki is half of a country’s name’ do you not understand? Here. Let me, off the top of my head, run a small exercise for how citizens of countries are often addressed.
Australia - Aussie
Britain - Brit
Afghanistan - Afghani
Denmark - Dane
Sweden - Swede
Saudi Arabia - Saudi
Mongolia - Mongol
Kazakhistan - Kazakh
Turkey - Turk
Are you beginning to notice a pattern yet? If not, allow me to spell it out for you. It is a common and perfectly normal practice for citizens of a country to be known by some dimunitive form of the name of their country. For Pakistanis (and in my view also Japanese), people, you’re insisting this should not be so because a bunch of hateful bastards co-opted the term at some point in the past. Nigger, kike etc. are nowhere near equivalent to ‘Paki’ , and/or “Jap”, and if only you would try to get out of your highly ethnocentric worldview for a second, you would realise why this is so.
Aye, and no shame in that.
Agreed: the homo in homosexual deriving from the Greek for ‘same’, and not the Latin homo, meaning ‘man’. Whilst homosexual can be used pejoratively, I doubt you’d get raised eyebrows for saying ‘same sex’.
With respect, you’re unconvincing arguements and somewhat blinkered approach here aren’t your best allies. Good luck with that.
We’re going off topic here, and I’d rather not see this thread turn into a list of racial and ethnic and other slurs. We know how these words came to be seen as offensive - because people used them that way. The issue is how they’re used.
Why? To someone who doesn’t already know that is used as a slur by some, it just sounds like a shortened version of a country’s name.
What, until you’re informed to the contrary?
Or are you advocating carrying on regardless, even after being informed?
My blinkered approach? Sheesh. Ok dude. May the hypocrisy (and misplaced apostrophes) be with you.
With respect, your tone is becoming inappropriate for this forum.
Please dial it back a bit.
Oh, and (with the exception of the slang term, ‘Aussie’, and the straight abbreviation of ‘Brit’, from British) the rest of your list are not mere contractions or abbreviations - they are actual Demonyms (as you say, diminutive) forms of those nationalities you list - alas, and this is where your argument fails, wholesale, as “Paki” is not the diminutive or demonym for Pakistani, just as Aussie is not the demonym for Australian.
Quod erat demondstrandum.
I didn’t say, or even imply, either of those. I said that there is nothing in the term itself that leads one to automatically assume that it is a slur, Farmer Jane’s assertions to the contrary.
Fair comment.