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Comment by williamgrant | Hacker News Reader

The referendum certainly gave a voice to a demographic of nationalists, amongst them some quite insidious people, that's absolutely true.

However, it's simply incorrect to characterise the larger Brexit demographic as people who, majority living in the most deprived areas in the UK, voted for anything other than naive or misguided assumptions about the economic impact of EU membership.

It seems to be a fundamental political platform for all parties these days to dehumanise opponents over practicing the slightest bit of empathy.

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I feel you over-play the economic discussion, at least insofar as it was at the forefront.

While economic "freedom" was pushed by the official campaign, however, you can't deny the widespread publicity of the Nazi-esque "Breaking Point" poster. Anecdotally, I saw people pushing to vote Brexit to stop "the scum of Eastern Europe" from coming here and taxi drivers who voted Brexit to "kick the P*s out" (ethnic slur for Pakistani citizens).

The people airing these views weren't hardcore nationalists but regular working class people. Economic circumstances certainly made these voices louder (as hardship always causes populations to turn on "the other"), I will agree there.

It always baffles me when people claim "Paki" is an ethnic slur when used for Pakistani citizens. Do you consider "Brit" for a British citizen to be an ethnic slur as well?

Despite that you’re getting downvoted, I’m rather curious about the connotation of these words myself.

In the UK it's a derogatory catch-all term for anyone that vaguely looks South Asian and was initially widely publicized in the 60s/70s around "paki-bashing" (= aka "lets gang up and beat up some immigrants").

A few years of hearing skinhead Nazis shouting "pakis out" will do that to a culture.

People don't push dog shit through your letter box and spray paint "pakis out" if you're white British, but they do if you're Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, etc etc.

Is "Brit" widely used in a derogatory sense when bullying or attacking British-looking people? You can't decide "slur or not" just by "is it a shortened form of a country name".

No because "Brit" is never used as an ethnic slur.

For a good example of P* being used in a derogatory form, watch Bend it like Beckham, where it's used against an Indian girl because of the colour of her skin.

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