to be livid that my dad used the P word to describe people from Pakistan

[SaveScrabulous]

I'm really shocked and have just yelled at him for using the four letter P word to describe people of Pakistani origin.

In my house. I feel like kicking him out.

oh sorry pedillia.i said i was from dublin earlier.it's in ireland. as far as i know we have no history in racism seeing as we were to busy trying to get rid of our own oppressors i'd be very suprised if we found time to keep slaves or head off to africa to trade in them.

sorry didn't mean we had no history of racism.we have loads of racists here.

i meant no history of slavery

yanbu, but i have heard people in the north (burnley areas) who are pakistani referring to themselves as pakis. A lot of school age children do this and so do their peers, its not meant in an offensive way, just how they refer to each others cliques and cultures

Meggle that's dreadful that she said that. If someone younger said that I'd be even more shocked than with my dad!

I bet she wouldn't have said that if your dh had been there which is shocking in itself i.e. that she thought she was 'safe' to be saying bigoted things.

Once of my friends once called another friend's (who wasn't there)'s half Indian children half caste - I was shocked and told her that was so not acceptable. It was an 'innocent' mistake in that case as she genuinely didn't realise that wasn't acceptable to most people (although ignorance isn't an excuse imho). If someone called my ds half caste I'd be livid.

Fundamentally a good test of whether a term is dodgy is whether racist thugs would use it after "you f*ing ...." when verbally abusing someone. The N word, Y word for Jewish people and the P word all fit with this.

sorry but my ignorance is the same as your friends. what is the politically correct term for half caste people now? not on a wind up i just thought half cast or mixed race where acceptable to soceity at large.

theBOD - the current PC term is 'dual heritage'

hmmm never knew that.
so is mixed race still a no no?

I'm not sure!

what about kids have parents of the same heritage but different races?
like a black woman from england and a white guy from england have a kid.
hardly different heritages.

I would describe my son as mixed race but not half caste to be honest. I would never say dual heritage - it might be pc but it just sounds silly to me!

Half caste to me seems an old fashioned term that is used negatively.

It's not as bad as some of the other terms on here though e.g. the P word.

SaveScrabulous - I'm really glad to know that 'mixed race' is still OK to say. I think 'dual heritage' is very poncey.

The correct term is mixed race, my children are mixed race, we wouldn't say dual heritage as both me & DH were born in Britain. MIL & FIL originally from Jamacia.
Half caste is not okay, although people who use it do not usually mean it as a derogatary term, it is.

I think social workers came up with 'dual heritage' The first time I heard it was when we were being assessed as adopters.

MommaFeelgood just looked at your profile (cos I'm nosy) and your children are sooo beautiful.

Not acceptable in any circumstance I don't think.

Explain it to him by saying "Dad it is like I can call you a racist fuckwit because I'm your daughter, but I'd get really cross if someone else did"

Love it princess - I'm so going to say that to him

Don't be mortified - your dh knows you find it unacceptable and it would be really shitty for him to make you feel bad about it. I used to get called p* sometimes as a child (I'm part Asian) - it was very common then.

Good on you for taking a stand - fwiw my dad (from India) has been known to use equally unacceptable names for other races and I just tell him what I think and put down the phone

Bird - dh has been better about it now - I don't think he will tell anyone.

Good - hope you're feeling better about it all