Zs: November 2018 Pick: Zeros by Chuck Wendig

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

If you mean Pakistani but shortened to the first half of the word, anyone who has seen Bend it Like Beckham knows that is a racial slur and not to use it.

I would think it might show the character's racism, but that's always tricky isn't it. It can also just show the author's ignorance, which might be the case here, but it's hard to tell.

[Trike]

Do we already have a thread about British v. American words? Because we seem to run into this semi-regularly.

Recently (Thanksgiving) a British friend of mine was appalled that we would put gravy on biscuits. “Biscuits” meaning “cookie”, of course. Once we clarified “biscuit” meant “scone” the world made sense again.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Trike wrote: "Recently (Thanksgiving) a British friend of mine was appalled that we would put gravy on biscuits. “Biscuits” meaning “cookie”, of course. Once we clarified “biscuit” meant “scone” the world made sense again. "

Oh I shuddered at this because to me, the American, "scone" is sweet where "biscuit" is a non-sweet scone kind of.

[Robert]

Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth wrote: "I don't want to start a new thread for this, as it's such a small thing, but did anyone else flinch at the use of the p-word in this book? "

It's definitely a slur in Canada and the US, but definitely not in the same class as the n-word. What's the exact context it's used in? My feeling it was a slur against the Pakistan Goverment and not an individual so it didn't really stick in my head.

[Rick]

Yeah, it's not used in the US so it's got no emotional resonance here and isn't a slur. Mind you, I assume that anyone who would use it would use it AS a slur...but most US folks wouldn't know to use it.

Why isn't it? Well, we don't have the UK's history with that subcontinent. While there are a lot of Indian folks in tech-centric communities now, there are relatively speaking none in the society at large.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Rick wrote: "Yeah, it's not used in the US so it's got no emotional resonance here and isn't a slur. Mind you, I assume that anyone who would use it would use it AS a slur...but most US folks wouldn't know to u..."

Except we live in the world at large and Partition (the basis for most racist behavior extended to Pakistani people) was a massive world altering event....

[David H.]

The first time I ever heard is used was in the movie "Bend It Like Beckham" (great movie, one of Keira Knightley's first films, too), and it was fightin' words in that context (set around London).

But the former British Empire is not the US and there's a lot more Indian Subcontinent immigration to UK than to US (as happens with most colonial empires), so more opportunity for insults to develop in those countries.

The US has like 300,000+ Pakistanis (mostly centered around the largest cities, especially NYC) and the UK has 4 times as many Pakistanis with 1/5 the population of the US.

In this context, I would hope Wendig knew about the word, but you never know. I don't know him well enough to say either way.

[Dara]

It's certainly a derogatory word in the US but not at the scale it is in the UK.

[Rick]

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Except we live in the world at large and Partition (the basis for most racist behavior extended to Pakistani people) was a massive world altering event....
.."

1) Not everything everywhere has equal influence on everyone. Events in, say, Kenya right now don't have the same effect on you as events closer to home.

2) Partition wasn't a US thing and was 70-ish years ago.

The fact remains that Pakistani issues simply don't have the same resonance in the US as they do in the UK (and Pakistan, obviously).

[Trike]

Although the US doesn’t really have a deep connection to the Indian subcontinent, it is interesting how the India-Pakistan rivalry keeps cropping up in America.

Last year here in Bedford, New Hampshire, (which is probably 98% Caucasian) a woman went before the zoning board to get approval of her new veterinary practice she was building. The owner of the motel in the lot next to it disapproved of the plan and tried to block it. His excuses were incredibly flimsy, such as protesting that the lights from the parking lot would shine into the rooms of his customers. Nevermind that there is something like a 6-foot drop in elevation from the motel to the vet building and that the business would mostly be closed during evening hours, he just didn’t like it.

Turns out he was Pakistani and she was Indian, and that was the real basis of his objection. And I mean, what are the odds that halfway around the world this nonsense would crop up in one of the whitest states in America? Irony, I know it when I see it.

[Jessica]

Huh, if the P-word is what I think it is, the only time I’ve ever heard it used was when one Pakistani-American guy was saying that British Pakistani women are some of the most beautiful women in the world, so I never thought to interpret it as derogatory. Perhaps it only has that connotation if you use it when not Pakistani yourself.

[Jessica]

Trike, was it a religion thing? Obviously the initial impetus for dividing into two nations was religious in nature, but not everyone born and raised in Pakistan is Muslim, just as not everyone in India is Hindu. My friend’s father is from India and her mother from Pakistan, and they have been quite happily married for a few decades now :) Both are Hindu. Even in the U.S. you can find a lot of strife between Muslims and Hindus, though.