How many Pakis does it take to screw in a light bulb?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I wuold hate to think that intentionally racist terminology was acceptable in the cellar.

Funny, I would hate to think terminology in the Cellar had to meet somebody's test of "acceptability".

"Paki" certainly isn't as loaded here as it apparently is in the UK...which I suspect has a lot more to do with your own situation concerning the unfortunate combination of largely unbridled immigration and a vastly more socialist government. Your personal situation must be interesting at the moment; descibing yourself as an "armchair socialist" while your party (you *are* Labor, right?) is tightening up immigration enforcement just as we're trying to do here while our liberals complain about how "racist" it all is.

I didn't think the point of the story had to do with the fact that the man was in a Pakistani jail but rather that he could have a light bulb up his ass and claim not to know how it got there. Comparable to the rash of men who got their dicks caught in vaccum cleaner hoses back when Penthouse Magazine was hyping them as a sex toys and claiming in the ER that it happened accidentally while housecleaning in the nude.

If it had happened in Afghanistan rather than Pakistan, the lede would have been "How many Afghanis does it take to screw in a light bulb?"...mainly because an "Afghan" here is as likely to be either a shawl or a hound.

If I have to tolerate the occasional "how gay is that?" (not to mention the incredible more caustic calumny in some other anti-gay threads of recent memory), I'm sure you can survive a "paki" here without getting all PC.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by limey

How strong is anti-Polish feeling in the States? Are there political parties dedicated to repatriating Poles (or other immigrant populations)? Do Poles get beaten up on the street because of their nationality? Are their shops fire-bombed?

Not that I'm aware of. Nor does that happen to folks from Pakistan in recent memory...although right after 9/11 there was a case where a lunatic relative of a friend of mine living in a very rural area tried to set fire to a gas station run by Indians believing them to be Arabs. He went to prison for it.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

hey, I'm British, which means I am also a European...we have had the odd, teensy little problem with racism over here

Well...I can certainly appreciate that the combination of open borders and a socalist government doesn't always work out that well when there's deep poverty in nearby counties...and in the 21st century "nearby" is a lot further way than it used to be.

I do think just dismissing the resentment that causes amongst your constituents as "racism" is an incomplete response. I doubt your local Nazis would gain as much traction as they do if the constituents heard a more...dare I say "nuanced"? :-) view of the situation.

And the same thing very much applies here in the US, too...where we like to think we're less socialist, but are too often kidding ourselves.

[DanaC]

Well...I can certainly appreciate that the combination of open borders and a socalist government doesn't always work out that well when there's deep poverty in nearby counties

I love the way you keep describing it as a socialist government. It very much isn't. It's authoritarian and centre right. I am in the party, not the government. The party was around long before Tony Blair. In my branch we're pretty left wing.

And, just to clarify. The immigration is not unbridled. The figures that get quoted are massively over-hyped. Asylum seekers find it very difficult to get leave to stay here, and the authorities have no compunction in putting them on a plane to somewhere dangerous if they can get away with it. If they can't trhey put them into a detention block. A lot of people aren't aware of just how awful it is in those places.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I love the way you keep describing it as a socialist government. It very much isn't. It's authoritarian and centre right.

As we've seen mnay times before here on The Cellar, left and right are very much relative to where you sit. I surely won't dispute the "authoritarian" part...but than than doesn't have much to do with right or left.

Originally Posted by DanaC

I love the way you keep describing it as a socialist government. It very much isn't. It's authoritarian and centre right. I am in the party, not the government. The party was around long before Tony Blair. In my branch we're pretty left wing.

And, just to clarify. The immigration is not unbridled. The figures that get quoted are massively over-hyped. Asylum seekers find it very difficult to get leave to stay here, and the authorities have no compunction in putting them on a plane to somewhere dangerous if they can get away with it. If they can't trhey put them into a detention block. A lot of people aren't aware of just how awful it is in those places.

Oligarchy.

[Sundae]

It IS a term of abuse in the UK, and DanaC, Limey & I live in the UK. It makes sense that we would question the use of a word which is offensive over here.

It's not a "how right-on are you?" pissing contest, it's a question of different connotations for the same word in different parts of the world.

I asked Slang if Paki was deemed acceptable when he used it in reports on his trip to Pakistan. I accepted his response that it was simply a description of nationality to him, not an insult (which would have been odd as he chose to visit the country in the first place).

It still jars with me though. Shows how powerful social conditioning is sometimes.

[Griff]

Around here we usually just call them "Doctor."

[Jordon]

They screwed the lightbulb into a socket right afterwards, and it still works.

Waste not, want not.

[Jordon]

they screw in council housing.

[DanaC]

they screw in council housing.

wtf is that supposed to mean?

[Spexxvet]

I'd never heard the term "Paki" before, let alone known it was a slur. Then again, I thought the term "limey" was insulting to the British.

[DanaC]

*smiles* If the British had been invaded; conquered and oppressed by an American empire and then when some of them moved to America they were given the worst jobs, spat at in the streets and seen as somehow diluting American racial heritage...then it probably would be insulting to call them limey :P
As it is its a little more like sibling rivalry. We often call the French 'frogs'. It's kind of racist but it's a different dynamic at play.
It's like the difference between your brother calling you a prick, and the bully at school calling you one.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by DanaC

wtf is that supposed to mean?

You missed the opportunity to complain about another racial slur.

I agree with much of what DanaC says about the terminology 'Paki' , and I do not find the fact that someone has suffered from broken glass in the anus remotely amusing . It does not matter how the glass got there .

For those of you who read literature and who are interested in thinking in general , and thinking in particular about the complexity of being both British and linked to the Indian sub-continent , may I suggest the fine contemporary writer Hanif Kureishi . You could perhaps start with 'Buddha in Suburbia ' .

Hanif Kureishi is far more interesting and amusing than a broken light-bulb .