Meta post I’ve decided to make. I enjoyed the unixporn subreddit a lot when I used reddit more. I enjoy customizing my linux de as much as the next nerd.

But you definitely shouldn’t use racist slang to refer to the process.

To be clear, I didn’t know the origin of the term ‘ricing’ until fairly recently. I was chattimg with my friend and used it to describe my de setup. They informed me that apparently it’s from car customization, and is a pejorative against generally asian men who customize their car to look like a racecar.

After learning this I was sad to realize just how engrained it is in linux de customization culture. I personally have stopped using the term, and I would ask everyone here stop as well.

    • xXthrowawayXx [none/use name]English
      64•1 year ago

      I’m with you especially on that last part. My most insane privately racist lug-mate called it modding or customization. Even in the windows shell hacking scene no one described it like that.

      I do like using “tuning” though, fond memories of import tuner magazine and my dearly departed first car and first computer.

    • roguetrick
      16•1 year ago

      Now they need to just find an Asian person saying it’s not a big deal so they can dismiss your comment.

    • @El_Rocha@lm.put.tf
      1•1 year ago

      It’s a stupid term that is based on an antiquated mindset where Asian people are not creative and cannot invent anything of substance; we are only able to poorly imitate what the West develops. It needs to die.

      The term at least since the 90s means to modify stuff to your heart’s content and literally creating something new, unique and personal.

      Idk where you went to get that “can’t invent anything of substance” thing, but you might want to check your internalized racism.

  • @inasaba@lemmy.mlEnglish
    95•1 year ago

    Thank you for making this post. The number of times I’ve seen the term used here lately has been bothering me.

    • @midnight@lemmy.one
      3•1 year ago

      I have no idea what “rice” is supposed to evoke outside of its history in the car industry/communities.

      Whoops, your virtue signal is showing.

      whoops

      Don’t go deleting it now.

        • @midnight@lemmy.one
          6•1 year ago

          Lmao, it’s cute one of your comrades remove the image on your instance.

          I didn’t say people can’t change. But 8 days ago you used the term “outside of its history in the car industry/communities” and now you claim you have no idea what it’s supposed to be? Give me a break lol. Are you outing yourself as a racist from 8 days ago? Wow quick reform.

          This post doesn’t change anything. It’s just a bunch of hexbear snowflakes whining that a community has enough brain cells to know context matters.

          How exactly is your use of a term you deemed racist not relevant in a post where you and your comrades are going around calling people racist for using a term they don’t deem racist? Are you actually serious right now? You can’t see the relevance? Take your blinders off.

          At any rate, I didn’t dig up the comment on purpose. I was seeing how much hexbear engages with lemmy.ml/c/unixporn and wouldn’t you know it out of the 210 comments your instance had only 5 of them were not in this post. Not surprising since you only had 22 users subscribed here. Your comment was one of the 5 and I went to see if there was any consistency, expecting to see hexbear users call it out as racist if it came up as you all clearly think it is now. To my lack of surprise I saw the opposite, 80% not having anything to do with the term and your humdinger exposing yourself.

          You’ve underminded your entire argument and exposed your bad faith tactics in one fell swoop. You should probably stay in your safe space instead of trying to find things you think are you dunking on people.

            • @midnight@lemmy.one
              6•1 year ago

              You’re delusional. My only exposure to hexbear prior to this post was communities on large instances wanting to defederate you. This whole post makes it abundantly clear why that’s the case. You’re all very clearly a group of losers that banded together for some type of us vs the world bullshit, you even tried to pass off hexbears vs the world as my idea when it’s actually yours. It’s pathetic.

              You can’t engage with us on the and now you’re resorting to meaningless personal jabs

              On the what now? Do you just rage type and submit without making sure your words form coherent thoughts? Try again junior. It’s not a personal jab to point out you outed yourself as a racist by your own definition. Almost every comment you lot have made to me has been dodging my original point that there are a lot of you piling on and then attacking me. I guess hypocrisy is lost in your small world eh?

              As an aside, do hexbears have an infantilzation fetish? The amount of your users randomly bringing in baby shit is really odd. Oh, what’s that? You all lean on tactic that was pivotal to maintaining slavery? But go ahead and tell me again how you’re not racist anymore. In case a hexbear mod removes the link, I linked to the wikipedia page on infantilization.

              To get this straightened up, you’ve outed yourself as a racist both by using a term you now claim is racist that you had no idea how it would be used outside of a racist context and your whole lot use the same tactics with people you disagree with that were used to prolong slavery. Got it.

  • Awoo [she/her]English
    69•1 year ago

    The arguments being made here are the same ones that were used for f*ggot, tr*p, nword, g*psy, r*dskins, etc etc etc.

    It’s the same damn thing every single time, a bunch of reactionaries will piss and whine and piss and whine and piss and whine because they have to make the most minimal amount of effort to adopt a new word in their vocabulary instead of the problem one. They will piss and whine forever until eventually accepting it, like all the others historically.

    They join a long long line of pissy whiney losers for making the same tired old arguments we’ve seen for so many things before.

  • @stuck_in_the_shell@programming.dev
    65•1 year ago

    100% agree!!

    I’ve never used the term and the first time I’ve heard about it even without knowing the origins/meaning it already was clear to be a pejorative term.

    The excuse the mods in the old r/unixporn subreddit was that the term was broadly accepted by the community.

    Well guess what we are not reddit and one of the reasons I left reddit was because I was tired of being in communities like that. We can do better, let’s shape our communities with the right values and not just carry on a legacy that should’ve died with reddit itself.

  • @nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip
    61•1 year ago

    Asian here and rice eater here.

    Language doesn’t work in absolute way, it could change its meaning all the time.

    It’s better to regain is neutral meaning instead of letting the racist weaponize neutral word.

    Also, this mindset is also Western centric, go to Asia and people in Linux and car community simply use the word without any negative connotation.

    Edit: By doing this, you’re no different from imperial government who tries to make one standard of morality, which in fact further hurts Asian living in Asia. And as Indonesian, I’m hurt with your statement. Let me regain the neutral meaning. Don’t speak for us.

  • DessalinesM
    56•1 year ago

    Sry I’ve been an absent mod here. Would anyone like to help mod this community?

    I’ve also added a no-racist terms rule to the sidebar.

  • circuitfarmer
    51•1 year ago

    Linguist here. Totally agree the term should stop being used. As a practical concern, it would be easier to get people to stop using it if there were another term that was a drop-in replacement.

    Yeah, we can say “customize” as the verb, but what about the noun? Sharing “customizations” doesn’t really refer to the same kind of DE-specific customization as the other term.

    Is there any such word in usage? If not, can we coin one and just start dropping it on forums?

  • Juice [none/use name]English
    50•1 year ago

    I got called out for saying this once. At first I was like “what’s racist about rice” but when I googled it everything that came up was an explicitly anti-asian meme.

    So yeah the word is being used in the west as a racist term so non Asians should reconsider whether using the term helps or hurts their relationships with others within the communities we frequent. I think vigilance is better than ambivalence.

  • @chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    50•1 year ago

    In general I don’t agree with the sort of broad language policing some people seem to be advocating for here, but this word does seem pretty inseparable from a racist joke. What could rice have to do with computer customization? Even if it’s distanced from the original meaning the word itself implies that racist joke. So yeah probably better avoided and replaced.

  • Thordros [he/him, comrade/them]English
    38•1 year ago

    How the fresh fuck is this even a thing still? Even back in the 90’s I heard dudes making gags about “Uncle Ben Hot Rods”. You know. RICE IT UP!

    GET IT? They’re shitty race cars made by a shitty race who only makes cheap stuff!

    🤮