KSI and Understanding The Impact of The Word Paki
Last week, a Sidemen video dropped where KSI used a word that he probably shouldn’t have. To quote the video, “I don’t mean this maliciously but the word–” [Laughter]. It was met with laughter, muted or bleeped out, and everyone moved on. But everyone kind of knew he said a word that he probably shouldn’t have. To be fair, even when I saw the clip I was like, “Yeah, he probably shouldn’t have gone there.” I didn’t think there was gonna be too big of a reaction, and that probably speaks more to my own upbringing in Brampton, which is a predominantly Punjabi/Brown city. It’s not to say that we didn’t have racism, but post-9/11, all I heard was “Osama bin Laden,” not that word. So that word just didn’t evoke the same sort of response it did from people here as it did in the UK. I was really curious as to what that word’s weight is for people in the UK.
It was definitely more of a learning experience for me while I dove into other people’s stories and just how weighted that word was. We always heard stories about our parents’ generation, but for people in the UK, this word is still present. It’s still heavily used, pretty degrading, and still evokes quite the emotional response from even people growing up now. I was curious how this really still affects people in the UK and what the response was from the UK side of things, and how UK Punjabis and Sikhs were responding to it, so I put a message out to my community and got a response back with links of some dominant Punjabis and South Asians and I think it’s worth sharing some of their stories and going through what they thought because honestly how the word affects me, I don’t think really matters in this case because, like I said, we as a community here just didn’t feel that same sort of wrath and still don’t, but it does evoke and does have an impact on the community there.
First up was Inkquisitive, who posted about it with a picture and a pretty decent description. I’m gonna just share what he wrote in full: “My work is not a reflection to personally target someone or to shame them, but something has been sitting right with me for the last few days and despite ignoring it and telling myself it’s not worth painting on it is. With a recent video second posted to KSI laughingly saying a racial slur and put many of us in a bad pit it put many of us in a bad place the racial slur is the word Packy. It’s being part of many South Asians’ journey especially growing up in the UK. It comes with racial physical and mental abuse. Packy is a term I’ve grown up hearing and being called from being a kid to a 16 year old being left unconscious on the central line train waking up six stops after hospitalized to the countless times Waiting for a Train to get to college at Romford as an 18 year old why because of my brown skin it’s something that has never left me and even now still has its effect hearing it again. I was going to post a picture of myself back then but but this isn’t about me so I don’t take it lightly at all and I’m glad so many other people across social media feel the same way I do because Khan official has been tweeting so much truth on this and I stand with him and if you need to read even more stories about this this four-letter slur take a look at the heartbreaking post from my brother Sook. So can I tragically losing his own father with the same language and he it really isn’t a joke and apology will come out and Sally will be forgotten but for so many of us South Asians it’s not just a word it’s a reminder that that word is still created so lightly as though it’s just part of the color palette as my illustration showcases be you thick Muslim or Hindu you’re all under the same color chart and for many of us it takes us back to a place we try to leave behind as for the rest of the bunch laughing and cheering in the video it’d be a completely different take if it was set in front of someone else I guarantee it it’s not banter.” I had no idea this guy got beat unconscious for it.
Here’s Sukh Knight’s post, which was a screenshot of a news clipping from back in the day, 1989. It says, “Shopkeeper killed after crying ‘Paki’ use jibe over death.” A teenager who bragged after killing an Asian shopkeeper has been sentenced to three years of detention. Lee Lambert, 16, remarked later to a friend, “There are enough of them up in Upton Park, it should be called ‘Paki’ Park.” His indifference to the death of Kulwinder Singh Oppo, 26, led to his arrest. The Old Bailey heard on Friday his friend Lloyd Evans shocked him. Mr. Opal gave chase after Lambert and another shoplifter stole two pairs of jeans and a shirt from his Green Street shop. Mr. Opal of Chadwell Heath hurled himself at the getaway car and clung on as Lambert accelerated, but Lambert deliberately swerved to loosen the shopkeeper’s grip, so the prosecutor Linda Stern said, “Mr. Opal fell hitting his head on the curb at in Penn road.” He was Dead on Arrival at the hospital. This wasn’t even that long ago, 1989, and the guy’s father was killed and people were just laughing about it.
Here’s another story from Rhea who says, “When I was six, a gang of boys would throw eggs at our house shouting that word every day. I watched my grandma clean eggs off our windows just to do it again the next. When I was 13, a girl at school said that all ‘Pakis’ should go back to their own country and take their Corner shops with them. It was on the school bus. When I brought it up she said I was a liar. When I was 15, a man threw a beer can at my granddad and shouted that word at him. He got injured, he had blood running down his forehead from where it hit him. I won’t forget how he looked when he came home. When I was 16, a boy at sixth form said I’m a ‘Paki’ who should go back to Sparkbrook where I belong. I had never spoken to him being there two weeks everyone said I should ignore it and that it was and that it was just the way he was. When I was 17, a boy at school described how he punched that ‘Paki’ taxi driver when he asked him to pay at the end of The Journey private school rich guy could have paid he laughed as he told the story.” So yeah, it seems like there’s still a lot of violence happening and clearly it’s just not a joke and it’s not something that should be taken as lightly.
I was also reading thoughts from a personal friend, Colin Dhillon, and I remember he even wrote about his own experiences growing up. I thought that must have been back in the day, but all these stories aren’t that back in the day. Even his stuff, when I say back back in the day, that was just 80s and 90s racism that he was growing up in, so I asked him, “Can you help explain what the impact of KSI using this word is to UK people and even yourself who face such racism and wrote about it?” This is what he had to say: “Maybe it’s not the fact that the word got used, maybe it’s more about the reaction from everyone else that was in the room. The fact that when the word was used, everybody else just simply laughed. Nobody thought to change their expressions. Nobody thought that the word required a more serious approach. It was as if it was a big joke and it was funny, it was okay, and I think that is what’s wrong with that ‘P’ word. Look, growing up in the 70s and the 80s, we were all ‘Ps.’ Didn’t matter what religion you were from, which part of the world in South Asia you came from, which country you came from, everybody was a ‘P,’ and it goes through you. It went through me. I wrote about it in my book for Three Houses, the effect it had on me growing up, the effect it still has on me. I’m fortunate here in Canada I’ve not actually had the word thrown at me, but back home in the UK, I think it just signified what KSI did and how it was accepted and how I think socially it wasn’t challenged. Yes, we challenged it, people of color challenged it, but I think what was disappointing about it was the fact that it was a person of color that used it and they didn’t edit it. How do you not edit that out? How does your team allow that to continue to go through? So look, it’s not the n-word, we can’t compare it to the n-word, but we can say it is a racial slur which goes deep with South Asian community members.”
The intent of this video is never to try and cancel KSI. I’m confident from the original video he realized that the word was offside, but rather it was just to talk about the gravity and lived experience that that word still carries for people today. Even if KSI or his PR teams are doing the rounds, going in the mosques, talking to South Asian leaders, and properly trying to make amends, it’s important to remember that making light of the word wasn’t right.
Even for me, this whole thing was a learning experience, just how prevalent the word still is in the last 15-20 years and not wanting to just brush it under the rug. UK South Asians everywhere should stand up to stuff like this and stand up racism like this all over the place, because one left unchecked, things get worse. Be nice to each other. I’m gonna link KSI’s apology at the end of this, so hopefully, he’s a better person out of this and everyone in that video is too. Peace.
KSI’s apology states: “First of all, I want to address a recent incident in a video where I, by my actions, have affected many, many people, especially in the South Asian community. I want to take this opportunity to offer my deepest and most sincere apologies for my words and actions in a recent video. I used a racial term that is offensive to so many, especially in the salvation community. There are no excuses for what I said and I recognize I’ve caused a lot of hurt and disappointment to so many people. So many people look up to me and my ignorance has only reinforced the negative stereotypes that have existed for way too long in this country. I want to express my heartfelt regret for what I said and I want you to know that I am generally ashamed and deeply sorry for any pain or suffering I of course [Music].”
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