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.

    • Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Asian American here. It’s racist. It offends me because it is racist, and has always been racist.

  • stuck_in_the_shell@programming.dev
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    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.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    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?

  • s20@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Kinda curious as to what actual Asian folks, whether currently in Asia or of Asian descent, think.

    I don’t use the term anyway because I’m an old grognard and couldn’t grok the lingo, but it seems to me that they’re the ones other folks should be listening to on this.

    • Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Asian American. It’s offensive. I probably won’t say anything, but I will look at you funny and assume you’re ignorant at best.

  • inasaba@lemmy.ml
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    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.

  • slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Im asian. I eat and like rice, even on my setups. I’m gonna keep using rice cause its not my fault yall western imperialists fuck shit up and dont wanna be reminded of it. also very western centric debate. Good job debate perverts.

    • panopticon [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Asian here and rice eater here also and I think the right way to respond to racist cliches is with hostility, same way we ought to respond to Nazism and other forms of fascism. if you want to reclaim the word, fine whatever. But you’re drawing a false equivalence between westerners trying to self-criticize their use of chauvinistic language, and the imperial governments that enforce that chauvinism in the first place (what the fuck dude)

      Funny you’re calling anyone a debate pervert

  • midnight@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Sheesh, there sure are a lot of hexbear users here piling onto anybody with a different opinion

    Edit: I went ahead and queried the lemmy database from a federated instance I have access to.

    These are the top 3 instances commenting in this specific post at the time of writing (2023-08-25 08:02 UTC):

    instance   | count
    -------------+-------
    hexbear.net |   205
    lemmy.ml    |   106
    lemm.ee     |    61
    

    These are the top 3 instances and their comment counts on any post in lemmy.ml/c/unixporn this month at the time of writing:

    domain    | count
    -------------+-------
    lemmy.ml    |   210
    hexbear.net |   210
    lemm.ee     |   100
    

    You’re reading that right, hexbear has a whopping FIVE comments in this community that are not part of this post.

    For the curious, those 5 comments at the time of writing are:

    One of which is especially hilarious as we see a hexbear user that’s been railing on people in this post using the very term they’re condemning here. Strong convictions? Perhaps bandwagoning the hexbear teet? Who knows. Definitely not suspicious 🙄

      • midnight@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Look ma, another one! Do you all take shifts on duty watching this thread?

        Different opinions being challenging your collective definition of the word being inherently racist. You can hem and haw all you want but meanings can change over time. If it can start being used racially at one point it can surely stop at another.

        • Sasuke [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          sicko-biker NEW POSTER REPORTING FOR DUTY!

          do you ‘‘different-opinion-havers’’ also take shifts whenever there’s a racist term to defend?

          • eskimofry@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Why are you stirring up shit about a word that a majority of users associate with Linux modding? What number of people exactly know the old meaning? Is your teaching the people that it’s a racist word help anyway?

            • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              because it’s racist. learn to take mild criticism and adjust behavior. it’s not hard and it’s a basic part of living with other people.

        • QuietCupcake [any, they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Look ma, another one! Do you all take shifts on duty watching this thread?

          This is my only comment in this thread. I clicked on this post because it showed up in my feed, simple as. Everyone who talks about hexbear brigading, piling on, or “taking shifts” doesn’t understand how federation works. Hexbear has been a highly active website with a large userbase for years now, so I don’t know what you would you expect to happen when a large discussion-based website shows content… the people on that website are going to discuss that content.

          meanings can change over time. If it can start being used racially at one point it can surely stop at another.

          This is true. But the group of people who get to decide whether or not something is racist is the group that is the target of that racism. White people don’t get to decide the n-word is no longer racist. Hetero people don’t get to decide the 3-letter f-word isn’t homophobic. And no individual gets to decide because it’s a cultural issue. Obviously meanings of words change and evolve, but they do so organically, and trying to force a racist term into regular usage and then say “it’s not racist anymore because I wasn’t intending to use it that way” is itself some really racist shit.

          • midnight@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            Everyone who talks about hexbear brigading, piling on, or “taking shifts” doesn’t understand how federation works.

            Just because there are some users that stumble upon content semi-organically doesn’t mean brigading and piling on isn’t happening. I would hope you guys aren’t actually taking shifts. Hello hyperbole. And none of that indicates someone doesn’t understand how federation works, are you sure you understand how it works?

            the group of people who get to decide whether or not something is racist is the group that is the target of that racism

            They’re also the group that gets to decide if they’re offended/if something qualifies as racist toward them. You’ll notice OP never indicated if they were part of this group, and by them recently learning the roots of the term as it relates to the car scene I’d guess they’re not. Hello virtue signaling.

            Hetero people don’t get to decide the 3-letter f-word isn’t homophobic

            When it relates to homosexuality, I agree. When in another context, like… oh say British slang, it’s not at all. Context matters, that’s the whole point here.

            trying to force a racist term into regular usage … is itself some really racist shit

            I’m not going to concede your assertion that ricing in this context is racist. Nobody is forcing anything, ricing in this context has been a non racial term for as long as I’ve seen it used to describe customizing DEs. This is what something changing organically looks like. Unless you can point me to a source showing the term as it relates to linux was intentionally used to try to dull the racist origins in the car world you can go sit with the other hexbear virtue signalers in this post.

            • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Yes, there must be brigading going on, it’s not like there’s some sort of “front page” for federated instances that just anyone can browse, where active discussions like this would be promoted over less active content.

                • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Been quashed? You’re claiming that users could only semi-organically stumble upon this post, when your continual engagement has kept it at a healthy position in the active feed for the past 2 days. If it weren’t for your insistence on being racist none of us would have seen the post at all.

            • space_comrade [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Just because there are some users that stumble upon content semi-organically doesn’t mean brigading and piling on isn’t happening.

              You have any proof of this or are you just assuming that happens because you can’t fathom that many people actually disagreeing with you?

              • midnight@lemmy.one
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                1 year ago

                You’ll notice your comrade is the one that mentioned brigading. I only said there were a lot of hexbear users piling onto people that disagree with OP, which is obvious reading through the post. I can’t hold your hand on that though, if you don’t possess the reading comprehension to see that that’s on you.

                • space_comrade [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  You’re obnoxious. Hexbear is one of the largest instances, comparable to lemmy.ml which is where this was posted. There are also users from lemmy.ml and other instances agreeing with OP.

                  You’re just a huge fucking baby that thinks encountering lots of opposing opinions must be some grand conspiracy against you.

        • inasaba@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          They’re not the only ones calling y’all out. Stop defending using racist terms.

          • midnight@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            Y’all need to learn to understand context. Someone born in 1988 with 88 tattooed on them is not inherently racist. Someone with 88 tattooed right under their swastika tat is racist.

            I don’t have time to run every term through the book of hidden meanings for racists that you people seem to have. It’s not racist in this context and the only ones trying to make it that way are those like you. Let it die.

  • Integrate777@discuss.online
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    1 year ago

    For the sake of the American asian diaspora minorities again?

    This reminds me of attacking those girls for wearing a kimono or cheongsam to a prom. The Japanese and Chinese living in Japan and China certainly don’t have an issue. It’s the Japanese/Chinese American minority community who has built their identity around it, and feels threatened by the use of their traditional clothing. Fine, the prom is in America, it’s an American problem in an American space, the local diaspora have a say there.

    Unixporn on lemmy.ml isn’t American(or any one country) though, clearly there are a variety of people from every corner of the globe here. This place is positively cosmopolitan. I don’t see a reason why the “rice” term still has to be protected despite being a global platform. Just like it’s fine for any tourist to rent a kimono in Japan, it should be fine to use rice as a term here. Unless this platform were to officially become Amerian(or any other country like Fedd.it etc), this problem shouldn’t exist. I’m an rice eating asian myself, I’ll be glad if people were to associate rice with customization.

    The Asian American community should keep in mind that the internet isn’t always an American space by default. I don’t think they should be gatekeeping everything Asian on a global platform.

  • tun@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    TIL the origin of the word.

    But I am confused. Anyone offended for using the word?

    When repos changed to main from master, I got problems.

    People are hypersensitive over these words now.

    • Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I’m Asian American. I’m offended by this word. In my experience, it has always been a racist perjorative every time it’s been used.

      Like you mentioned in your other comment, you don’t have the American racial experiences with how this is used to understand why this hurts me, so I’d like to clarify that it does.

      • temptest [any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        One of the top-rated replies so far is an Asian who expresses they are offended, so that can’t be right.

        What power and control does this even give someone?

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    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.

  • nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip
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    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.

    • panopticon [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      Ok, Asian here and rice eater here also and I think the right way to respond to racist cliches is with hostility, same way we ought to respond to Nazism and other forms of fascism. if you want to reclaim the word, fine whatever. But you’re drawing a false equivalence between westerners trying to self-criticize their use of chauvinistic language, and the imperial governments that enforce that chauvinism in the first place (wtf?)