[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by Redway

I’ve heard a lot of young people (and black people, even) innocently say half-caste as well and to me that one just is what it is. I get that there’s a history associated with it but to me it just sounds like a dated term. I wouldn’t have a heart attack over it.

On a similar token you do get black people sometimes refer to Asian-owned Afro-Asian stores in the U.K. as ‘paki shop/s’ and again to me that one just is. It’s literally short-hand for Pakistan and left to me I wouldn’t say it always has to be associated with negative tidings. British-Asians don’t have anything like the same historical association with racial abuse as black people so I wouldn’t bother going against someone’s defence for using that term innocently. Especially when it’s also even people of colour who use it.

Ha, there's a shop in my hometown that's colloquially known as ... an alliterative name that uses that mild slur along with the old man's name (or possibly assumed name, most of his family have more Indian-sounding names) which people around here use with no malice or anything.

[Redway]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

Ha, there's a shop in my hometown that's colloquially known as ... an alliterative name that uses that mild slur along with the old man's name (or possibly assumed name, most of his family have more Indian-sounding names) which people around here use with no malice or anything.

Yeah, and I get that. It’s not my narrative to tell (I ain’t got one drop of Indian/Pakistani blood in me as far as I know) but when people of all races occasionally use that word in certain contexts (not to someone’s face, obviously, because that would be disparaging) I just don’t think it can intrinsically be that bad.