I’m watching the new season of Endeavor, and in last night’s episode a political candidate was trying to whip up nationalistic fury against foreigners. Primarily he mentions “Asians”, with “Blacks” being very much an afterthought. But most of the vitriol was aimed at “Pakis,” with never a mention of “Indian” or (any other Indian-derived insult so far as I noticed.)
So I was wondering, if Pakis was an insult that was seen to include Indians?
Or were there relatively few immigrants from India vs. Pakistan, and that explains the lesser targetting? Which seems strange on the surface, considering the populations of the two nations, but maybe Indians are less likely to immigrate for some reason?
Or is there some cultural difference that mattered from the British viewpoint, that made the presence of a Pakistani more ‘offensive’ than that of someone from India? Is being Muslim ‘worse’ than being Hindu?
Paki is a catch all term for all South Asian looking people. The mindless morons who use the word have no care about actual country of origin. Brown person from Indian subcontinent is “Paki”
The actual reason has already been given, but note that a chunk of the 'paki’s who came to England as part of the ‘partition generation’ were actually ethnically ‘paki’, (Punjabi Muslim) displaced from the Hindu side of the new border, and the Hindu’s who came were actually from the Pakistan side of the new border … so they were all more or less Pakistani, one way or the other.
I thought that might be it, but it seemed a little weird that they’d chose the name of a much smaller area to use for the entire much larger one. Though, come to think of it, a lot of the world calls all Americans “yankees” though we natives have a different take on that.
And just to add that the generic ignorant racist term also predates any more recent specific antipathy toward Muslim people.
The number of people of Pakistani ethnicity in the U.K. is about 80% the number of Indian ethnicity, i.e. a much larger proportion than the population of Pakistan vs India. Although I’m not sure exactly what these census ethnic categories correspond to given the point Melbourne made.
Wow I just saw that “three quarters” change to 80 percent right before my eyes. I guess you don’t have to refresh your browser on Discord to see an edit change.
Worth pointing out that Endeavour is set in the 1960s, before a signficant migration to the UK of people of (mostly) Indian descent from East Africa to the UK. So, at the time, people from Pakistan or from communities associated with Pakistan may have made up a larger proportion of people of south Asian descent in the UK than they do today.
The OED has cites for Paki from 1964 as meaning “a person of Pakistani (also more generally, South Asian) birth or descent, esp. one living in Britain”. But the second cite is from a novel in which a character says “Ali’s a Paki—an’ you know how it goes. Paki’s pretty well look all the same to me”. At the time, most white Britons couldn’t easily distinguish between different south Asian communities by appearance, accent, etc. Anyone who, to the white British eye, could be from Pakistan could be called a “Paki”.
It is pretty much in the same league as the ‘N’ word. And yes it is used by racists to describe anyone with a brown skin.
Blockquote
Among many British Asians, the “P-word” is thought of as the pinnacle of language which restricted the lives of our parents and grandparents in the latter half of the 20th century. It was used to restrict housing and deny jobs. It inspired violence. In other words, it represents the struggle of an extreme past. I recently thought about its dated reputation while watching Gurinder Chadha’s 2019 film Blinded By The Light : a true story about an aspiring British Pakistani writer discovering the music of Bruce Springsteen at sixth-form college in Luton in the 1980s. At one point, the viewer discovers that a plastic mat is placed beside the front door to protect the carpet from racists urinating through the family’s letterbox. The P-word is used by locals to abuse the main character and his family.
I had never heard the term “paki” until my English (former) boyfriend used it to refer to the local convenience store, run by south Asian fellows(I don’t know their country of origin). He called it “the paki store”. I had no idea it was a slur until I learned it here. I thought it was the same as when he called our Welsh friend “taffy” and our Scottish friend “jock”. They all said it to one another’s face so I assumed it was more of a . . .nickname / term of endearment(?)
‘Paki shop’ was a common term when I was growing up (in the 70s) - many corner convenience stores had been taken over by incoming Asians. Back then, it didn’t carry the menace it now does (unless you were on the receiving end, I imagine). But I wouldn’t ever class it as a term of endearment. These days it’s right up there with the N word.
I think the most recent time I’ve heard someone use the p-word (in Canada) was my landlord circa 1996. I doubt she even knew that Pakistan was a country. (She once asked me if Saskatchewan was in Alberta.)
I had a friend who was British-Indian. When he was talking about buying a new car, he said one of the considerations was that it couldn’t be too fancy. He settled on buying a Volkswagen, even though he could afford a BMW, because he said that random people on the street tended to yell “Paki!” at brown people in expensive cars.
Concur - the people who use this as a slur are not really interested in nuances.
Interestingly, the word isn’t a slur in Pakistan at all, and is broadly equivalent to the usage of the term ‘Brit’ in Britain - this has tripped me up in the past.
