Really long anecdotal and stream of consciousness post incoming, apologies for the derail from the tribunal!
At the time I grew up, and in my area (Scotland) it was also common to use the P and C words for small shops of any kinds and for takeaway Chinese food. A lot of people (my Father included) used these, along with common slurs for gay or lesbian, and made racist and anti-English jokes.
Our small area was almost entirely a white, heterosexual community but we had a pounding tourist trade and a fair whack of English people who'd moved up the road.
Weirdly, actually treating people differently, overt racism or homophobia was very rare. There were a few really nasty fuckers, including those who were prejudiced towards the English.
I always hated it though. It always felt unjust and disrespectful and although I was actually quite frightened of him, I had a few goes at my Father as a teenager for it.
I think these moments of headbutting confused him a lot, because he was one of those people who actually really liked everyone. He never treated people differently because of skin colour, religion or culture, and had a genuine friendly curiosity about anyone different to him that he met. He'd talk to anyone and everyone, buy them a pint if possible, and everyone would be talking like old friends before you knew it. He would keep in touch by letter with some of the friends he made along the way.
I knew that about him, but still felt it was horrible of him to make those "jokes" and use those words because even if the intent is not offensive the general effect of those words and jokes is negative.
For example, parents who were not (bar the rare few) racist, but made the jokes and comments had a trickle down effect that resulted in racism in some of their children.
Our school was entirely white except for two students.
One had white Scottish parents, but for whatever reason, this student was born with dark skin and very tight curls type texture of hair and could have passed for black or mixed race. Any way this particular student got on fine in our area, was part of the popular crowd and was therefore "safe" from their racism.
The other student was not so lucky. This student also had dark skin and had close cropped afro curled hair, but came from a mixed race family of a different religion than was practiced in the area. One parent was black, the other parent was white, and there was also a younger sibling who was white passing with straight hair and pale skin.
This student was quiet, studious, talented and just an all round nice person, but was not part of the popular crowd. Instead because of their skin colour, family set up, and difference in religion, this student (not the younger white passing sibling mind!) was bullied by the popular crowd, including by the other dark skinned student. The bullying was sometimes over the family's religion, but was more often than not racist.
It was fucking horrible! No one with any power (teachers, parents etc) seemed to do anything about it, or even care that it was happening. Eventually the whole family left, I suspect the overt racism and othering of their religion was the cause. I really hope they found somewhere much nicer to live!
Then there's "casual" racism. I had a conversation with guy from my area a little while back, his friend group is a bunch of white Scottish, same cultural and same or very similar religious backgrounds, and one guy who immigrated here from Pakistan.
The guy told me a racist joke and I told him it wasn't funny, just racist. He responded with the old "But my friend is brown and he thinks these jokes are hilarious!" guff. So I told him well he fucking has to laugh doesn't he? If he didn't laugh along and make jokes about himself for the amusement of the group, you would all think he wasn't "fun" to be around. If he protested at your racist jokes? Well he'd probably not be part of the group any more would he? This guy did not agree. He and his other white friends are probably still making racist jokes at the expense of their Pakistani "friend" seeing absolutely nothing wrong with it.
I think situations like that, where the people at the butt of the joke laugh along, maybe even making the jokes about themselves unprompted, like examples PPs have given about the Pakistani people they know could be looked at in a context similar to that friendship group but on a country wide scale, if that makes sense?
So for example on a personal level, I noticed a while back that my low self confidence was leading me to make self deprecating jokes a lot.
It was just reinforcing that low confidence in my own head and it was a self defeating cycle. It also devalued me to other people and over time it does make a difference to how people treat and see you.
Friends and colleagues began to do it too. After all I was joking about myself, so why wouldn't other people join in with the laughs? Which is fine if you just do it occasionally I guess.
When you take the piss out of yourself a lot a lot, people start doing it too and more frequently. Eventually you notice that you have became the butt of a lot of jokes, and the jokes lead to a definite difference in how people see you over all.
You could have proved yourself to be a useful and capable person time after time, but if you make yourself the butt of the jokes, people start to treat you like you're a bit useless and silly. You get comments with a little eye roll and a laugh, or if somethings gone wrong, or there's been a small fuck up people joke that it's your fault. I think it seeps into the subconscious and people will actually start to believe you are a bit useless and think it's your fault if something goes wrong. It's a very hard habit to get out of.
So when I see people saying here Pakistani people they know make these sort of jokes about themselves etc, I think well yeah that makes sense to me in context of immigrating to what used to be a predominantly white country with a very different cultural and religious history. People would have tried to fit in and make as few waves as possible. I think that if they didn't laugh along they would be wrongly seen by a lot of people as difficult and humourless, and I think a divide would have grown with a lot of white people resentful at any push back without thinking that maybe they had anything to do with the problems that had "suddenly" appeared from "nowhere".
I am white so this is not me trying to be all self important white person becomes arbiter of what constitutes racism, it's just my personal thoughts which I may not have articulated nearly so well as I'd have liked. Hopefully you'll all understand what I'm getting at.
Apologies if I've caused any offense to anyone from a Pakistani background, I'm sure you are perfectly capable of standing up for yourselves if you feel it necessary and it certainly wasn't my intention to offend in any way, or imply that the Pakistani man I mentioned earlier needs a white person like me to save him, or tell him or any Pakistani people what to find offensive or not, and I would be genuinely horrified at myself if I've caused anyone distress or upset with what I've said.