tell me about it... one thing i hate about bradford is if you go into the centre then you always get mouthy shits kicking off, then when you say something back its cos you're racist an suddenly all their mates appear from nowhere then its time to leg it!
why is it amazing? people seem to think the rest of the world is different? look at india/ pakistan/ taiwan/ china/ sri lanka/ iran/ iraq/ kurds/ timor/ indonesia/ northern ireland/ phillipines/ korea/ tibet/ haiti/ most of sub saharan africa/ cyprus/ poland/ finland/ russia.... all at each others throats over one thing or another the list is endless!
I'd agree with that... in fact me and paula said something along those lines when we were talking the other day. I generally take people at face value (french or not ) but I think people are cocks regardless if thats how they come accross I'm just not the kind of person to slag the wankers off to their faces... too much hassell
Unfortunately I went to France for the 'return leg' of this exchange and almost everyone I met there was a total tosser.
I no longer feel the need to defend the French! btw, those of you saying paki isn't racist unless it's meant in an offensive manner- does that mean nigger and chink aren't racist? They're just shortened versions of negro and chinese.
I heard a few years back that "chink" was not considered a racist slur in the english laguage. I'd agree that using it to directly offend someone makes it racist... as with other similar words. Its how the words are used and directed that make them insults.
Thing is, they use it as a deliberatly offensive remark. remember India and Pakistan are not best of friends!
Good thread, some intelligent views on this thread!! On the subject of whether "paki" is a racial slur or merely an adjective refering to someones place of origin, i think anyone who realises the ambigious nature of the phase is unlikely to use it, so as not to cause offence. Because of its double meaning people are unsure of what context the phase is being used in and assume a slur. Thus if by definition Paki was classed singularly as a slur it would remove such cause for debate. thus with a sweeping generalisation all people who use the work are inherently rascist I think the media make the defeat of rasicm seem like a mountain to climb, basically it boils down to not being colour blind. Only in the last 100 years has there been large scale global population interaction, it will take time for old bigoted views to die, and it is important that those views are not passed down to impressionable younger generations, education is the key, ppl only fear what they don't understand. (and other ppl with big fuck off knives etc.) Too often lots of issues are collectively pidgeon holed under a single heading, deal with problems individually rather than all of them at once, as it just confuses matters.