A Questionable Term

[Fiona_McQuarrie@sfu.ca]

>	I used to date a girl from Pakistan, and she had a tape of a  
>religious fundamentalist chanter, with three men as a chorus, and Peter  
>Gabriel on bass.  I think his name was something like Muskrat.  He would  
>just get into the rhythm of the beat, then chant for about twenty minutes.   
>Supposedly he was (is) very big in Paki-Land, and the wealthy would invite  
>theirt friends over to hear him play at their houses.  It was all supposed  
>to be very religious.

I feel that I should point this out....
In the above message, which was a quote from a message posted to another
newsgroup, the term "Paki-Land" appears. In my neck of the woods, where
there are many immigrants from India and surrounding regions, "Paki" is an
extremely offensive racial slur.  

I'm certainly not slagging Tyrone, who posted this quote (although I do
have doubts about the person who wrote the original message). But I just
wanted to suggest that when material from any source is posted, we should
be careful about language that might be insulting to members of the group
or outside readers.

Cheers, Fiona 
Fiona McQuarrie
fmcquarr@sfu.ca 

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/ "We're not odd, we're just over-    /
/  expressive."                       /
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/                   Howard's End      /
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