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.

  • 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.

  • thepiguy@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Maybe a pretty popular food should not be used as a racist slang. You barking up the wrong tree bud

  • 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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      1 year ago

      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?)

    • s0ykaf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      thread appears on our feeds. we comment on it.

      i understand it feels bad to have your beliefs questioned, but that’s not brigading, it’s simply how these websites work

      • midnight@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Instance has comparatively high and active userbase with a very high percentage of Linux users

        That may be true, but your instance doesn’t have a very high percentage of engagement in this community outside of this post. Copying from an older comment of mine:

        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.

        One of those 5 is a user participating in the hexbear brigade in this thread that commented previously said rices were inspiring. But go ahead and tell me all those users are pillars of the linux community. Which bad faith argument will you use next?

        Inb4 bRIgaDIng HAs To be ORGaniZed And we’re NoT; even though an acceptable use of the term is also when a particular group floods another community’s space that they don’t normally participate in. I know you lot have trouble grasping a term can have multiple definitions, so don’t hurt yourself champ.

        • Freeanotherday [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          This is a .ml post… by one of us…

          Who the fuck do you think you are saying we are not part of the .ml community?

          We were here before you and we will be here after you’re purged with the rest of the libs.

          inshallah

          • midnight@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            What? You know hexbear isn’t lemmy.ml… right?? Your instance has 22 users subscribed to lemmy.ml/c/unixporn. You’ll notice I didn’t say you’re not part of whatever .ml community you’re talking about (although hilarious if you’re actually Mali gov.) I’m saying your instance is not an active participant in this unixporn community outside of this post. Also probably pretty safe to bet you’re not actually part of whatever ml community you’re imagining.

            Another not so clever shift by you fools to unsuccessfully change what I’ve said.

            We were here before you and we will be here after you’re purged with the rest of the libs.

            Are you the reason your comrades keep questioning knowledge on federation? Your instance didn’t federate until earlier this month. It’s literally impossible for your collective “we” to have been here before anyone with an account older than that, of which there are plenty.

            To spell it out for you. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Your instance as a whole does not engage with lemmy.ml/c/unixporn outside of this post. Be more mad though, it’s fun dismantling you all one by one. Maybe just stick to your safe space echo chamber 👍

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

          That’s great and all, but this is a federated comm, it appeared on my home page under active. I don’t know if it matters if I personally shared my XMonad config and custom volume widget or commented on yet another custom tiling wm. I always exclusively lurked on the subreddit. I lurk on this one too. Discussion isn’t usually that insightful besides “wow!” and “theme?”.

          This time, there was actual discussion and I decided to join in. Much more interesting than the 900th i3 gaps with an 18 pixel gap and 15 lines of code visible in the terminal.

    • randint@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      400 comments total is rookie numbers. You should check out the news posts involving either Russia, China, or Taiwan. Or check out this post where the admins of lemm.ee asked for the users’ opinions of whether to defederate from hexbear.net. There are 1884 comments. (There was once more than 1900 comments, but I guess the mods removed some.)

  • 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?

  • 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.

        • 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.

        • 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.

  • 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.

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

    Huh, I was under the impression it was an acronym for Racing Inspired Cosmetic Enhancement or something along the lines of that. Parts that make the car look like a racecar but don’t actually help it perform any different.

    It could totally be a backronym that was generated after it’s initial use though.

  • Scoopta@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    Discussions like this always bring me back to one thing…can a word itself be racist? Is it racist to use a word if it’s not being said with racist intent? It’s reminiscent of the gimp debacle…if a words use isn’t intended to offend it’s honestly beyond me how anyone could find it offensive. Are we supposed to ban every single word that has the slightest history of being used in an offensive fashion? Feel like we’d have a really long list if we did that.