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Why is the term 'Paki' considered an insult? (fedia.io)

submitted 4 months ago by Talaraine@fedia.io to c/random@fedia.io

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The people from Uzbekistan are called Uzbeks, the people from Turkmenistan are called Turkmen, the people from Afghanistan are called Afghans.

It's only come to my attention recently that calling someone from Pakistan a 'Paki' is an insult. Should it just be 'Paks' and somehow adding an I is incorrect?

Can anyone explain this to me?

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[–] bjorney@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

Unlike the others, where the ethnic group preceded the country, to quote wikipedia, the name Pakistan "is composed of letters taken from the names of all our homelands, Indian and Asian, Panjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan."

There is a 50+ year history of people using it as an umbrella term to (offensively) refer to all the ethnic groups above, regardless of their actual ethnic roots, or even whether they were actually from Pakistan. It's othering, similar to the word "oriental", with an extra splash of explicit hatred (rather than just pure ignorance)