Witless Racist

A cool 42 miles cycled today, taking me past; Little Venice, Lords cricket ground, London Zoo, Sven-Göran Eriksson's house, St. Pancras international, Farringdon, St. Paul's, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, The Imperial War Museum, The Cutty Sark (all covered up now), Greenwhich, Themsmead, the Woolwich ferry, City Airport, Docklands, Mile End, Bethnal Green, Shorditch, Angle and back to St. Pancras.

It was mostly uneventful, which in itself is noteworthy as it's rare that no one tried to crush me, run me over or open their door in my face (ok, one did but I avoided it silently). The area around the Woolwich ferry is one that I've not been to since I was very young and I don't have overly pleasant memories of that area either. What sort of person would feel good kicking a 10 year old and leaving him, gasping for breath, I'll never know! (another story for another time though.)

Anyway, back to today. After having millions thrown into that area for regeneration, I noticed very little difference at first but looking a little closer and you notice more building sites, that's a start surly. Once on the ferry, I looked up and saw a sign “mayor of London”, this, I thought, is regeneration in action!

I exaggerate, it's a lot better than I make it out to be but you still see a lot of the old 'A Clockwork Orange' type buildings. Moving away from there and across to the other side of the river, you're essentially in the old Docklands which never went through the 'business' regeneration that Canary Wharf went through. Instead there are countless warehouses (only on a full moon, mind) as far as the eye can see, oh and an Evangelical Church.

Cycleing along on a near empty road, all the industrial units (and oddly something that looked like a strip club) closed, a car pulls up along side of me, the 'lady' in the passenger seat sticks her head out of the window and shouts “Fuck you Paki!” I know this is a rather generous offer given that I have only just met her but, in all honesty, she wasn't my type.

Amazingly, here I was, presented with a phrase I have not heard (thankfully) in a number of years, I had no idea what to do but they had to stop at the red light which I was fast approaching, I went through my options:

Option 1) Go into the etymology of the word (I do love doing this) and talk about how although it's deemed to be a derogatory term, it is simply shortened from 'Pakistani' which generally (since the founding of the county in 1947) refers to someone from the 'Punjab', 'Afghan', 'Kashmir' or 'Indus' regions. It may also be worth mentioning that 'paki' means 'pure' in the original Urdu. Either way, I can't claim heritage in any of the regions and would be stretching the definition of pure if that's what they meant. I didn't go with this option as I fear my explanation would be lost on them.

Option 2) Reply with “rather a Paki than a Chav”, granted I would be making some major assumptions about their character but as the driver (a young gentleman) had two teeth and wore a Burberry baseball cap and the somewhat vocal passenger was wearing hooped earings big enough for me to cycle through, I figure I would be on solid ground in using the term. The phrase would have had the added bonus of pointing out that the label she offered me was solely based on a single trait of my appearance that is genetic and beyond my control. Whereas the label I choose for her is based on many thousands of small lifestyle choices she has voluntarily made over the years, each and every one of them would have been well within her grasp to control. Unfortunately I fear this subtlety would have been lost on them so I didn't go with this option.

Option 3) This has to be my clear favorite; explain to her that if you must choose to shout racist comments whilst half hanging out of the window than please put an iota of effort into it, come up with something witty, cleaver, something that would have required the warming up of a brain cell or two on my part. There is no reason whatsoever to resort to a cliché like 'paki'. Off the top of my head, with absolutely no thought or effort: “why don't you get back on the boat and go back to where you came from” as I had just come off the ferry that may have worked. I'm not saying use the insult I thought up, I'm just saying that if I can come up with this in the 30 meters it takes me to get to a set of traffic lights than surly a racist can do much better! I didn't go with this option as when I start a “if you must be racist than at least put some wit into it” rant, I can go on for a while and I didn't feel I had the time for this, besides, I fear it would have been lost on them.

Option 4) Sarcasm; but I didn't really feel like talking to her. The plan being I pull up in front of them, laugh and give them a really sarcastic 'thumbs up', this clearly can't be lost on them as surly there is no way I would have found the comment amusing or funny so they would know that I was being sarcastic.

I get to the lights and weigh up the four options I have and decide to go with number four, followed by a quick exit towards the standstill traffic in front of me, on the off chance they choose to follow me. I give them the thumbs up and judging by the blank faces looking back at me, I fear my sarcasm was lost on them....