To me, it seems on the other hand very racist to ask people to fill in their race on every damn form just as in the USA. What purpose does this exactly serve, that institutions of all sorts need to know whether one is Indian, African-American, Native, or otherwise? This does not exist in Britain, or mainland Europe. I’m quite sure it has to do with WWII, when the Nazis could just pick off the government registrations who is Jew and who is not! This phenomenon (recording race) is definitely something that many Europeans are uncomfortable with. Make of that what you will.

My thesis is simply this. Americans tend to be more uncomfortable with class or race divisions than Brits. Argue that point if you care to. As you well know, public opinion doesn’t favor the AZ law. But much as I despise the AZ law, you’ll have to admit it’s a huge stretch for you to claim that the law ‘legalizes racial profiling’. A very Palinesque comparison.

Racial profiling has shaky legal ground in the US and can be contested in court, but try seeking legal recourse in Germany if you’re Arab and have a hard time renting a place. Or seeking recourse as a Nigerian living in India who keeps getting hauled off to the cops on suspicions of drug smuggling. So yeah, the USA is far from perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot fairer than most other places.

So no, I am not f’ing kidding you.

“A Paki is someone who comes from Pakistan. Us bredrens who don’t come from Pakistan can still b call’d Paki by other bredrens if it means we can call dem Paki in return. But u people ain’t allow’d 2 join in, u get me?”

But the novel’s narrator clarifies –

“All a this sh*t was just academic a course. Firstly, Hardjit’s thesis, though it was what Mr Asherwood’d call internally coherent, failed to recognise the universality a the word Nigga compared with the word Paki. De-poncified, this means many Hindus an Sikhs’d spit blood if they ever got linked to anything to do with Pakistan. Indians are just too racists to use the word Paki.”