My friend keeps using this racist term

[Mrsbird311]

A really good friend has on the last couple of occasions used this term to describe someone from Pakistan each time I've said to her that people don't use that term and that it's very offensive but she won't have it, she says its just short for Pakistan, like we would call a Scottish person a scot, I don't see it like this and told her that it is really offensive she then got cross with me and said I'd gone all PC on her, I told her she sounded like an Alf garnet type bigot, I know she isn't a racist person in the slightest but she can't see this is offensive who is BU?

i think if people from pakistan use it, its up to them, but anyone with any sensitivity or intelligence knows that you dont use it as a non pakistani, especially if youre white, because of the massive history of it being used as an insult.

Its not exactly hard to not use it, and the connotations are completely different to calling someone a scot or a brit

What word do you want her to use instead?

Why are you so spineless that you didn't have the bollocks to say to her :
"Please don't use that word, you should use the word xxxxxx instead. "

As a word I don't think it was originally offensive or wrong. But, in the UK anyway, it has been used in a derogatory way for so long now that it is clearly an unacceptable to word to anyone who hasn't been walking round with their ears and eyes shut for 40 years.

Plus, justifying it as a shortening of a country opens up a can of worms. I recently heard a man in a pub shouting across the bar that there was nothing wrong with the word Nigger as it just meant someone from Niger! He was quite adamant that no one should be offended by his use of the word!

Very interesting Runawaytosea - that's going to go in my bank of useless knowledge

The last time I heard it, it was used by a Pakistani restauranteur, in Birmingham, to describe his target clientele. Having grown up in the 70s and 80s and heard it bandied about as a racist insult to anyone with brown skin, it felt like a physical jolt and I was quite shocked. Haven't heard it for so many years.

I consider it a racist term and offensive

Should not be used in C21 UK

It is racist. Often said to anyone with brown skin, of south Asian descent. (I'm Indian)

I've been called it, preceded by the word 'fucking' by a group of drunk white men on the way home from a night out with friends. It's still up there as being one of the worst experiences of my life.

There's a perfectly acceptable word referring to a person from Pakistan. Pakistani. Why argue over using a dodgy, racist term unless you're a stupid bigoted cunt?

What do Pakistanis in Pakistan call themselves? Is Pakistan even called Pakistan there?
Is the word Paki is only offensive in Britain?

That is awful Enormouse. must have been frightening too. I do not know how anyone can be like that

suggest it's stayed with me almost 8 years later. It was one drunk guy being egged on by his equally drunk friends. "You're fucking gorgeous, for a fucking paki. I'd still fuck you, even though you're a fucking Paki. You fucking paki".

Seriously how are you supposed to challenge that? Oh please, you had me at paki .

But I haven't heard it before or since. I sincerely hope the word dies a death in my lifetime.

I recently attended a business meeting outside of the UK where they used the abbreviation "paki" for Pakistan in a pp presentation.

I mentioned to the very multi cultural (but no other Brits) team that they might want to change this and the response was incomprehension. The three Pakistani team members (who had never lived in UK) thought I was mental. It was a very odd conversation

I can't imagine you'll ever forget that experience. I hope at some point these individuals will reflect on their lives and feel ashamed

Her term of shortening it would of been correct IF racist idiots didn't make the word offensive, however they did so yes it is wrong to say it.
Nothing PC about it, its a racist word and nobody should use it.

My Mum used to say 'our coloured brethren'. I told her it was offensive so she changed it to 'our ethnic brethren'. God help me.

I've also had the deeply unpleasant experience of having that word directed at me as a term of racist abuse (I'm of Indian origin). I have never heard any of the people of South Asian origin I know use the word to describe either themselves or other people from South Asian backgrounds. Frankly, I'm staggered that anyone living in Britain in this day and age could think it is anything other than a completely unacceptable, racist slur.

I find it deeply depressing that someone even needs to start a thread to get confirmation that this word is racist and generally horrible.

I'm 36 and remember getting upset when I was about 7 and another child used it in the playground to describe one of our classmates.

I think anyone who has grown up in the UK has not heard it used as a racist slur or doesn't know it can be. The thing I don't get is even if you used it perfectly innocently and genuinely thought it was an abbreviation, once someone points out it is offensive or might upset someone, why argue for the right to say it? Why is it so important? To the extent you just have to refer to someone by their ethnic origin is it really that hard to add on two more syllables? Is it better to upset someone?

Hakluyt I'm am funny aware that my comments of thirty years ago at the age of 15 were offensive as I said I apologised and have never used this expression since and am thankfully till friends with the guy and cringe every time I think of it, I was pointing out that if you say something that offends someone the normal thing is to take note and apologise .
And chaiselounger if you read my posts you would have seen that I pulled her up on it the first and second time
What would I have her say instead,? maybe his name as she has met him several times and hears me talk about him fairly often!!
The reason I asked if I was B U was because she was so adamant that she was in the right and I was being too PC

The thread title made my blood boil.

The first three years at secondary school in the late 90s was filled with racist bullying, both verbal and physical. With a lack of intervention from school, my family involved the police who eventually sorted it out.

That word is historically known to be racist in this country - that is what matters. The OP's friend is using it to describe a brown person, whose ethnic origin she may not have known, which makes her incredibly racist as she generalised and lumped them into the 'P*' category!

Runawaytosea That's an interesting observation - had never heard or thought of that.

Growing up I was always told the name comes from the word Pak (should really be spelt phonetically as Paak), which means 'pure' in Urdu. So Pakistan is literally 'land of the pure'.

But you're right the name is also an acronym for the 5 regions it's supposed to encompass and the Balochistan region gives rise to the ending.

Never refer to ourselves formally as Paki's, always Pakistani, unless in jest e.g. 'stop being such a Paki' (to describe particular traits).

mistress how do Pakistanis feel about the word mussalman? My parents and grandparents used to use it, but I don't know if it's now offensive/outdated. I stick to Pakistani.

chaise not sure how you missed the op saying in her first post that she challenged her friend on more than one occasion. She is clearly not spineless as she has told her what she has said is unacceptable. It's not even a long op where you can skim bits and overlook important info!

She is definitely being racist in what she is saying, especially after the first time when you have told her it is offensive and wrong. I agree that some people could use a racist term and not know it, and not be racist, but for that particular word I don't see how any adult can not know that it is wrong and racist to describe someone using that word.

I work for the police and the amount of reports where people have racially abused someone using that word even though they have never been to, or been associated in any way with Pakistan is astounding. It's just a term used for people that are not white.

If a word is normal and ok in one country and not in another a person does not suddenly turn from reasonable, to raging racist at some point flying over the Ocean.

If the term is not acceptable - fair enough - avoid it - but to assume racist behavior is silly.

We have the "coloured" debate on here before