"Pakis" v "Dour Presbyterian Scots"

[Mick Mac]

"Pakis" - is a racist term? [this was discussed on "Question Time" tonight (re Strictly Come Dancing)]

"Dour Presbyterian Scots" - is both racist? and also insulting? - [used by Andrew Neil on "This Week" only minutes later]

Why is the use of "Paki" derided but "Dour Scots" is acceptable.

Anyone brave enough to post?

I'd suggest we all post our views openly without fear of being called racist...

[ruffers]

As a kid I was in a playground near Oldham where all freely talked of Paki's, Paki shops etc with no racist intent whatsoever. "Is it racist"? is a question of intent, and that we can't know.

[red devil]

Historically it's first use was associated with violent racist undertones e.g. Skinheads 'Paki bashing', and the word Paki is still felt in the Pakistani community as being a negative insult.

[Mick Mac]

So is it a question of intent by the user of the phrase? or a question of insult as perceived by the recipient?

[red devil]

Can you have one without the other?..

[RosieH]

Mick, I don't think you can say there's parity between the two descriptors.

Surely the equivalent of dour presbyterian scots would be miserable muslim pakistanis?

To my knowledge and in my experience, Paki has always been a perjorative term, whether said with malice or not.

And in answer to your intent v. perception question, surely the answer is both. It isn't good enough to say that you used a perjorative term but meant no harm by it, so the person on the receiving end would be wrong if they felt it was racist.

[Mick Mac]

Its the Scots I feel sorry for. They appear to be being insulted by Andrew Neil, but they ask for no sympathy.

[RosieH]

That's wilfully perverse at best.

[red devil]

Andrew Neil is Scottish, so is it a racist insult if the perpetrator and victim belong to the same race?..

[Mick Mac]

BTW Rosie you misspelt pejorative...its from the French you know...I only know that cos I had to look it up.

So you think the first person who ever used paki was using a pejorative term rather than a shortened version of pakistani.

I would disagree. I would have though logic decides that it was a shortened term before becoming a word of malice intent.

I would suggest that it much later bacame a racist terms (combining your and RDs posts). If correct there is some crossover between perception of user and recipient.

Going back to my original question - When will the Scots object to the word Scots? especially if it is preceded by "Dour Presbyterian" Scots....

[Mick Mac]

red devil Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Andrew Neil is Scottish, so is it a racist insult

> if the perpetrator and victim belong to the same

> race?..

Yes I know that RD, but he still represents the BBC.

[iaineasy]

we always called the shop down the end of the road the paki shop when I was growing up and no-one ever suggested it was racist, it's always been short for pakistani as far as I am concerned, I think it's one of those tricky one's where it's easy to take offence if your so inclined, but the fact is that it seems to have grown into a term percieved to be racist rather than starting out as one. If you are a racist by nature ,and you say it in a derrogative way then its racist, I would not use it now really for fear of being called a racist which I am sincerely not, I guess it's subject to evoloution like most language and it's current use is not aceptable to most people but it is no hardship not using it.

[LegalEagle-ish]

Scot does not describe a race, being Scottish is describing your nationality. Paki isn't used to describe a nationality as it tends to be used against anyone who is asian looking, so is a rascist description, not a description of someone's nationality.

[MrBen]

Quite different - there's no historical context to using this Scottish term with negative, racist intent.

And as a Scot I have no objections. Brown and Darling are hardly a barrel of laughs are they? Of course we're great with money and I actually reckon Brown did a good job as chancellor if not as PM. But then thats because we're all tight fisted aren't we? Or it's just Calvinist prudence. Or WAS pre RBS /HBOS. (Thanks Fred).

I agree with what I think you are getting at - that there us an undefinable grey area without clear rules. And we wander into it right here on the EDF as often as in the wider world with many incidents that demonstrate a fair amount of perverse logic and hypocrisy either way. But such is life.

[SeanMacGabhann]

And "Paddy" has always been a term of endearnment towards Irish people. Oh yes

mick, what do you want from this thread? Do you want permission to call people "paki"?

Ian, are you sure the corner shop was Pakistani?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Here's an interesting observation from Dave Trott (from his blog CST Advertising)

IT?S ONLY WORDS

21 September 2009

My wife is Singaporean and occasionally we go back to visit her folks.

We?re usually a bit more tanned when we come back.

After one particular holiday we went to see my mum.

Mum opened the door, gave her a big hug and said, ?Ooh Cathy, you look lovely. You look just like a nigger.?

Cathy didn?t know what to make of this.

She?d been told this word was a terrible insult.

And yet here was someone clearly using it as a compliment.

Cathy was listening simultaneously to the intent and the words, and they were giving her mixed messages.

In other words, cognitive dissonance.

Clearly my mum thought looking like a nigger was a good thing.

The problem was no one had told my mum that nigger was now a bad word.

Mum was born before the First World War, and it wasn?t a bad word then.

It was just slang, like Yank, or Scouse, or Frog, or Kraut, or Jap, or Jock, or Paddy, or Kiwi, or Bubble, or Cockney.

Maybe not the language you?d use at an embassy reception.

But this was east London.

Language is rougher and cruder.

To see if any offense is meant, you have to listen to the intention.

Not just the words.

Cognitive dissonance works the other way round, too.

Have you ever heard a mother in the supermarket whose child is having a tantrum?

Often she?ll be screaming, ?CALM DOWN!!!? at the child, at the top of her voice.

And wondering why it isn?t working.

Apparently, only 25% of communication is in the words we actually use.

The other 75% is everything else.

The tone of voice we say the words in.

Whether we?re smiling or frowning.

Whether our body language is friendly or hostile.

But when we communicate in print, like this blog, we lose that 75%.

So it?s completely easy to misinterpret intention.

Irony for instance, doesn?t work.

Take the two words, ?Oh really??

That?s all you get on paper.

An enquiry, apparently seeking verification.

But face-to-face you get the bit in brackets.

?Oh really?? (enthusiastic)

?Oh really?? (bored)

?Oh really?? (sarcastic)

?Oh really?? (suspicious)

?Oh really?? (surprised)

My father-in-law was an old fashioned Chinaman.

When he came to London he was shocked at the way strangers addressed my mother-in-law in the street.

From shopkeepers to bus conductors.

They?d call her ?Love? and ?Dear? and ?Darling? and ?Sweetheart?.

He became sullen.

Eventually he confronted her, ?Why do all these people know you well enough to call you ?darling?? What?s going on??

It took some time to convince him that his wife was innocent.

She didn?t know these people.

?Then why do they call you ?darling??? he wanted to know.

?It?s just their way,? she kept repeating.

?Look, women even call other women ?love?.?

Eventually she persuaded him to listen to the intention instead of just the words.

And then he could see that no harm was intended by anyone.

The words didn?t signify what he thought they did.

They were actually just meant to be friendly, even respectful.

He would have to adjust to people addressing his wife in this most intimate way.

Using words no one in China would use outside the bedroom.

He would have to learn to listen to the 75%, not just the 25%.

That?s what we all need to remember.

...

So we need to remember the limitations of words.

As Seneca said, ?The word ?dog? never bit anyone.?

[SeanMacGabhann]

So, given all that, did that dancer bloke mean it ad a compliment or not?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

In truth I don't know.

Going by Trott's explanation yes. But in bald print it looks bloody rude, if nothing else.

Going by Du Beke's rationale - 'I must say immediately and categorically that I am not a racist and that I do not use racist language. There was no racist intent whatsoever but I accept that it is a term which causes offence and I regret my use of it, which was done without thought or consideration of how others would react.' - I would say it also fits into that usage.

However, in print, it does not seem complimentary and it makes me wince. And it certainly upset the recipient - perception always has the last word.

[Mick Mac]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> And "Paddy" has always been a term of endearnment

> towards Irish people. Oh yes

>

> mick, what do you want from this thread? Do you

> want permission to call people "paki"?

>

> Ian, are you sure the corner shop was Pakistani?

I hope you are joking sean. I accept paki has racist undertones (although perhaps it was not always racist i believe it developed). Im wondering how many scottish people would have to complain to the beeb about the phrase dour scots before it was deemed racist and no longer pc to use it. Are are the scots too light hearted to take offence. For me its like saying the "arrogant english" it implies a general state of mind to a whole race, which it technically racist.

[LegalEagle-ish]

Making any comments about a nationality is nationalist, not racist.

Please stop confusing the two.

[????]

Interestingly the word "ethnics" and "ethnic" are now used with racist intent on less enlightened forums than this, so sadly, prejudice can even become PC or I guess 'legal' . I wouldn't use the word 'Paki' as it clearly has racist connotations now (maybe it always did) and certainly would make most people who heard someone using it think that the user was doing so with racist intent or was pretty ignorant. But in reality if you moved these racist intents it doesn't seem a too bad a slang way of talking about a group of people from Pakistan - although as Sean said I wonder how many were actually from Pakistan.

"gay" is another interesting word - when I was an infant it meant happy, then changed meaning and to a degree was acceptable, so 'gay friends' 'gay club' all ok but now to call something 'gay' is also perojative(?)...all a bleedin' minefield.

[*Bob*]

You can bet your bottom Rupee that one 'Paki' which 'just slips out' of Anton's mouth on an off-camera moment equals another thousand you haven't heard about.

You either say these things, or you don't. And he does.

So goodbye Anton Du Beck, top telly dancer with a impish sense of fun, hello Tony Beck from Essex, going down the 'Paki shop'. Urgh.

[Keef]

Totally with RosieH on this. Had he called the Scots the sweatys, that would be comparable to the term Paki. Dour Scot is just Dour Pakistani.

[Maurice]

I found the discussion on Newsnight quite interesting. Those opposed to its use, still said 'Paki' in the discussion, as we are doing here. Then as backup, they used 'the N word' as comparison, but no one will even speak that word, opting for the phrase 'the N word'.

So obviously 'Paki' is not quite as bad as 'the N word' - a word obviously in a the worst category, so bad we dare not speak its name.

[annaj]

The thing is, Mick Mac, that Scot is (in my opinion) a neutral term for someone of Scottish naitonality and the phrase is only made rude by the addition of the adjective dour.

You could also describe someone as a jolly Scot or a stubborn Scot or a witty Scot or a gregarious Scot, or, well, anything really. The term Scot doesn't imply any particular characteristic, the preceeding adjective does. So, almost by definition, it's not rascist, because rascisim is about prejudices and assumptions based on race alone.

The term Paki (again in my opinion, obviously) is offensive for the reasons already mentioned and "But everyone said it when we were kids" is no defence. Everything said about intent is true, but for some people, for various reasons to do with what they themselves or those connected to them have exerienced, some words will always be hurtful and so should not be used lightly.