This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
In the UK and (as far as I am aware) Australia, racial slurs are traditionally treated as slurs rather than swear words. So things like the use-mention distinction and the parody exemption apply (although not in media targetted at children). My white lips have emitted the phonemes n-short i-hard g-schwa while discussing Lee Atwater's political strategy, giving examples of words you can't say on TV, giving examples of words you can say in private but shouldn't, and caricaturing racist gammons. All of these were socially acceptable in the UK.
In terms of relative severity, "Paki" in the UK is as bad as "Nigger", possibly worse. Both would result in a beatdown and/or prosecution if used to insult an identifiable member of the group referred to, and cancellation if used to insult the group generically. In a poll of words that shouldn't be used on TV, "Nigger", "Paki" and "Cunt" come out as far worse than anything else. (Unfortunately this is less obvious from the report than it was in the raw data, which I can no longer find online)
This has probably changed since George Floyd became the current thing in summer 2020 at a time when PMC Brits were very online by default due to COVID and therefore were more susceptible to Septic ideas.
Interesting, I did not know at all that "Paki" is as grave an insult as that in the UK.
Here's a follow-up question: is it used to insult people of Indian background as well?
Only accidentally by people who can't tell the difference. It does apply to Bangladeshis - Bangladesh was still part of Pakistan at the point where the term started being used as a slur in the UK.
As far as I am aware, the term is not a slur in English-speaking communities in Pakistan itself, and only a mild one in other English-speaking countries.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Although it would definitely be thought of as offensive I don't think the word Paki is considered nearly as bad in the UK as nigger is in the US. It's anecdotal but when I was a kid my friends and relatives casually referred to the corner shop as the Paki shop and not in a manner that seemed to imply any genuine racial hostility on their part, likewise to this day Chinese people, restaurants and food can all be referred to as a chinky. I don't think you could unironically use these words on TV without causing a controversy, but at least people from around where I'm from aren't going to assume you're an unrepentant racist if they hear you using them the way I assume people would if you go around casually referring to black people as niggers in the US. It could be a class thing, my family is all very working class from a very white area.
I also can't ever recall the word Paki being censored when the media discussed racism against Asians, such as instances of "Paki-bashing" in which Asians have been physically assaulted for their race. If racist attacks against black people in the US were referred to by a term which contained the word nigger I'd be very surprised if the slur wasn't commonly censored when the media reported on it.
I agree - the point is that "Paki" in the UK is roughly as bad as "Nigger" in the UK. "Nigger" in the US is worse than both, understandably given the history. I don't know how old you are, but when I was growing up in the 1980's in London, both words were fairly widely used by older people because a lot of older people were racist and it was still socially acceptable to be racist in early 1980's Britain. By the time I was old enough to understand such things in the late 1980's, I knew that the polite words were "Black" and "Pakistani". But the British were and still are much more tolerant of rude jokes than Americans if they are actually funny. We all knew that we were being offensive when we asked "How did the Romans annoy the Pakis" but did it anyway because we were schoolboys telling racist jokes in the same way schoolboys told bawdy jokes.
By the late 90's, you could probably get away with calling a Chinese restaurant "Chinky" outside specific PC circles (I have to say that in the circles I moved in it was always "Chink"), but calling an individual Chinese person that to their face was risky. "Chink" was definitely acceptable in jokes ("You are the weakest Chink. Goodbye"), in contexts where rudeness was expected ("Keep the Chink away from my sister") or reclamatory use by Chinese people. I would not have said "Nigger" or "Paki" at all by then unless I was protected by the use/mention distinction or obviously parodying something.
FWIW, the report I link above puts "Chinky" into the worst of the three categories they use, but it is clear from the comments as well as from the no-longer-online raw data that "Nigger" and "Paki" are worse than the other "strong" racial slurs.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link