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You have chosen an interesting ideological hill to make your metaphorical stand upon. In response to a story about how a young boy was tormented to the point of suicide, you choose to admonish people for using a verboten word? Quite a curiously verboten word, at that.

The term -stan naturally means something akin to “homeland of...”. So, naturally, Afghanistan is the homeland of the Afghan people, just as Tajikistan is home to the Tajiks, and Uzbekistan is home to the Uzbeks, and unsurprisingly Kazakhstan plays host to a people called Kazakhs.

I suppose any right-thinking, morally upstanding citizen of an enlightened nation should find it frankly shocking and outraging that in a civilized nation someone from Pakistan would be given the moniker “Paki”. Just scandalous. Almost as bad as someone from Scotland being called a Scot, or someone from Britain being called a Brit, or someone from Australia being called an Aussie. Just deplorable.

The only reason “Paki” is considered a slur in your homeland is because rabidly irrational and confrontational social crusaders once discovered that they could short-circuit any rational political or social discourse by making baseless accusations of racism against their ideological opposites. Hence, ANY term you may use to refer to another group, regardless of how linguistically or taxonomically correct such term may be, can be self-righteously transformed into a “racial slur” by parties intent on derailing a debate. It becomes functionally impossible under such conditions to rationally discuss ANYTHING about the UNNAMEABLE group.

I will continue for the rest of my days to insist that the word “Paki” is no more of an angry, hateful slur than the word “Scot” or “Brit”; even if said words were to be used in anger or for the admonishment of their respective groups.

So, that thrilling little lesson in political and social applications of etymology aside, let’s stop derailing the debate by baseless accusations of “RACIST! RACIST! YOU USED A BAD WORD!” Really, it is time to desist, or I shall be forced to call you a dirty scotsman with so much tongue-in-cheek that I risk spraining the muscle in question.

The heart of the issue is that a young boy was tormented to death in his own homeland for the supposed crime of being a certain color. Even the headline for this story is telling, as the reporters would certainly have far more inflammatory language to use if the races of the perpetrators and victim had been reversed.

I am enough of a student of human nature that I can confidently predict that in the brief day or two that this story is allowed in the light of day that veritable mountains of verbiage will be built in the discussions of this story, in personal discourse, in print, and in electronic rambling the whole web over. I can also predict that most such mountains will be made of sentiments that have absolutely nothing to do with the damned story in the first place. People will invariably wish to dissemble and misdirect, either willfully or with the uncomfortable urge to change the uncomfortable subject, rather than discuss the pressing social issues touched upon by this incident or the very real heartbreak and tragedy of this specific atrocity.

It’s easier for polite people to find something less... confrontational and offensive to talk about. Musn’t offend others, ya know. It’s easier to get into a few pages of discussion about what words one is not allowed to use than risk saying something FAR more truthful and potentially FAR more offensive.

Well, this bit of reflexive politeness presents ethical problems when there are issues of pressing, yet emotional, importance to be discussed. Particularly troublesome about politeness is that being polite more often than not entails ignoring obvious truths. You see, many things that can categorically fall under the title “the truth” are a little less than polite. You wouldn’t wish to hurt the feelings of one of your friends or neighbors by pointing out that his or her clothing is so eye-burning atrocious that it caused dogs and small children to flee in terror, now would you?

As a matter of fact, once you get down to the real meat of the matter, the truth is often a very ugly thing - frightful really - and sometimes it’s more than can be expected of a man to ask him to roll over first thing in the morning and confront that ghastly thing known as the truth. I suspect that most of humanity is engaged in a daily effort to ignore unsolicited realizations of truthfulness, if for no other reason than the fact that our continued survival often depends on the artful and polite non-observance of the objectionable.

But mankind’s innate urge towards politeness can be dangerous when it comes time to rationally discuss the present and the future, before events rush to a point where the only decisions left to be made must be made quickly and irrationally. Further, the reflexive politeness of socially self-conscious individuals can be manipulated for political gain by unscrupulous social crusaders.

There are a number of uncomfortable realizations suggested by this article, and throwing politeness to the four winds I will enumerate a few of the more glaringly obvious ones:

First - This story will be promptly forgotten. It’s just not newsworthy, there’s no profit to be made and no political gains to be made in stirring up the natives. There aren’t any racial or religious advocacy organizations that are going to step up and carry the banner of this dead child. No special prosecutors will be appointed to seek out justice, no passionate speeches will be made in the halls of government, and you can rest assured that you won’t be confronted with the uncomfortable details of this story every time you turn on your television or pass an archaic example of physical newsprint. The boy was the wrong color for any of that, so we’ll be right back to business as usual.

Second - The conditions that allowed this event to take place will continue to fester. There will be no mass-candlelight vigils to remind the community of the injustices of racism, there will be no protests and vociferous action campaigns to demand a change in policy from the school administrators or local government. At the current time your society’s institutions as well as the forces of community decree are ideologically aligned to protect the interests of the abusers, not the abused.

Third - If the races had been reversed this likely would not have happened. Herein lies a particularly poignant element of tragedy.

Did the boy’s teachers hesitate to apply the same protections to this boy that they would have applied to his dusky classmates if the white boy and his mates had been the racist aggressors?

Did school officials, if they even were made aware of the conflict, decline to intervene as passionately as they would have if the racial balance of conflict been more ideologically suitable for their rarefied and enlightened sentiments?

Did the parents of the abusers support and further the actions of their abusive offspring, feeding the children a steady stream of anti-white racial invective, self-righteously supporting the bullying, or the like?

Did the popular media play a role in shaping the opinions of the abusive youth and the abused alike - with music, movies, television and the news painting a picture of white people as worthy of scorn, derision and abuse, and portraying other peoples as justified in aggression towards whites?

Did the parents of the deceased boy play a part in this tragedy as well? As heart-wrenching as it may be to contemplate, is it possible that the boys parents did not protect him as passionately as they should have? What words of support did they offer him when he came home crying, when he begged not to be sent back to his daily hell, when he called for help? Did they inspire in their child a strong sense of self, and pride, or did they fall prey to the creeping sense of self-hatred afflicting the polite native peoples in western civilization? Did the parents march down to the school and self-righteously berate the staff for the unacceptable racist abuses heaped upon their child, or did they shy away from confrontation and racially charged action after making a token objection? Did the parents of the dead boy confront the racist parents of their son’s abusers, or did they cringe at the thought of “being one of THOSE people” that get upset at minorities.

The answers to a few of those questions can be found in the article. Quote:
“I went to see head Martin Collin a few times, but he only said, ‘You didn’t have to come to this school, you chose to come here’.”

Tell me, do you really think hate-crime laws are going to be used to protect YOU? Do you think affirmative action, hiring quotas, and racial justice legislation will be used to benefit YOUR people when you are discriminated-against-minorities in your own nations? Do you think that crusaders against racism like the Rev. Jackson and Sharpton will organize marches and vigils for someone of YOUR color brutally murdered by racist thugs? Do you think that anyone in the government or in the schools will shed any tears if another little white boy gets abused by racists? Do you think YOU would have better protected your own child against racist attacks than this child’s parents did?

The truth is often an ugly thing. It won’t win you any friends. But it still needs to be spoken regardless.