Yesterday about about 3pm I crossed the road to post a couple of cards at the letterbox on Old Hawne Lane. A dirty white car (a Fiesta?) was coming towards me on Whittingham Road turned into Old Hawne Lane after I’d crossed it. While I was posting the cards, someone in the car, which at this point was behind me, literally growled ‘Get out the fuckin’ road, paki’. I heard what he said and instantaneously responded in the only way they’d understand: I showed the retreating car my middle finger. They’d only have seen it if they looked in the rearview mirror.
It was a shock. For a start, I’m not prepared for people to be shouting anything at me in the street; when I’m out and about I keep myself to myself and am not expecting others to do otherwise. Also, I had cleared the road by the time they turned into it so I didn’t get in their way. Even if I hadn’t, by the Highway Code it was my right of way.
Paki is a word full of racial hatred. I’ve heard people in the pub say it’s just a descriptive word, like Brit. Well, if think that you’re most likely white and you can’t understand what it’s like to be called a Paki because there is no white equivalent. It’s all about context of course, but the only context I’ve experienced is derogatory. It’s the only way I’m able to experience it when it’s lobbed at me because I’m not from Pakistan and, in spite of what people think, it has not been reclaimed in the way that ‘nigger’ has by some.
The reason why it’s so offensive to be called a Paki is that you are forced to realise that, to the kind of person who uses this language, and there are plenty of them around, it doesn’t matter that you were born in this country, educated in this country, have completely accepted this country’s culture, paid your taxes in this country and married into a family from this country. It doesn’t matter that your grandparents were INVITED to this country to WORK and that how they came to be here. What matters to this scum is only that you look like you’re from South Asia or the Middle East and it doesn’t really matter beyond that because apparently we’re ALL THE SAME.
Actually that has reminded me of a very funny, very clever monologue from Richard Herring’s Objective: