Reading today’s Guardian newspaper (UK, 30 October) I came across the following:
“For young boys like Jake and his cousin John, the world is divided into two groups: the Pakis and the Porkies. The Pakis are the Muslims who seem to go to the mosque a thousand times a day, who fast and pray and have to watch what they eat. The porkies can be white or black or mixed race, but what unites them is that they are not Muslim. They call themselves porkies because, unlike the Muslims, they can eat pork. It is not a racial category you will find on any census form, but the concept of porkie says something new and profound about how some are forming their cultural identity in urban communities. The rise in mixed marriages has spawned a generation of children for whom the old race distinctions have blurred into irrelevance: it is not about whether you are black or white any more, it is about whether you are a paki or a porkie.”
This comes from a feature article about a white family living in a predominantly Asian area of Bradford (northern England.) It is trailing a documentary programme The Last White Kids on Channel 4 at 9.00 p.m. tonight (30 Oct.)
I hasten to say that I would never use the ‘P’ word myself – I’m only quoting from the dear old Grauniad.
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