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.
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.
Also, I’ve been using and customizing the X Window-based desktop for 25 years and I’m not sure that the term “ricing” was ever used anywhere before Reddit and even then only within the past decade or so. Let it die with that culture.
Thank you for making this post. The number of times I’ve seen the term used here lately has been bothering me.
I agree, it’s another example of racism being burned into the English language. You should always make an effort to change and adapt your vocabulary, to not do so is to endorse the very racist history that the term is based on.
Also the term just doesn’t make sense? I have no idea what “rice” is supposed to evoke outside of its history in the car industry/communities. “Cooking” seems to be the better term because people on Unixporn “cook up” their desktop to make it as appealing as possible (to their tastes or to the tastes of the group). So a submission would be someone’s “cook/dish.” The whole “let them cook” remark is also a relevant catchphrase.
We can do better, and why disregard that opportunity? “Rice” is a two-faced compliment with racist roots. It deserves the bucket.
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.
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Ahhh yes the problem is that Hexbear came in and agreed it is racist, and then the racists threw a fit.
Lmao give it a rest. Calling you a racist isn’t abuse, you just don’t like being called on it and now you’re pissing and whining about it.
Hexbear is a plague on lemmy, I can’t wait for the day of instance-level blocking
It’ll be great, you lot will opt out of seeing us, and opt out of cultural opposition to us. Meanwhile the vast majority will not, and without the far right as a constant source of distraction, concern trolling and sealioning the leftist influence will be even higher.
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minor issue
Casual racism != minor issue
Denial of racism != minor issue
Unless you’re a racist
You can strip the argument of all nuance and make all the false
equivelancesdichotomies you want, but you can fuck right off with it while you are at it, go crawl back to your imaginary arguments in your black and white world, you are clearly not here to discuss anything in good faith. I will engage with hexbear when you offer something of substance besides your adolescent maximalism.There isn’t any fucking nuance.
There is us pointing out something is racist.
There are racists claiming it is not.
There are racists claiming that the people calling you racist are being abusive for doing so.
That’s it. That’s the discussion. And you look pathetic for it. You were on the side of every other word I mentioned earlier too.
I don’t understand how this was an issue of “lack of nuance” or “black and white” thinking… Either the term is racist or it is not? … Is it disparaging a group of people based on racial/cultural/ethnic stereotypes? Yeah. Is it reinforcing and normalizing those stereotypes and upholding an ideal “normal” that is associated with being part of the dominant group? Yeah. Does it seem petty and pedantic? Racism generally does take on a petty and pedantic character… When you go out of your way to deny these things, you are only doing it in service of upholding racist norms. You don’t have to continue to defend it, you can acknowledge that it could cause a community harm and move on with your life by avoiding the harmful behavior. Changing the way you speak might seem annoying or like an imposition, but if you think that racism is harmful and want to challenge it by being anti-racist, ultimately people have to change the way they think, speak, and behave… but it is a good change. Embrace it.
On you go with the imaginary argument. I am not with you so I must be against you, right? I do not have and never did have a problem with getting rid of the word.
I will reitterate that the only problem I have is with the stinking garbage heap called hexbear.
Boy I can’t wait for instance blocking
we were being racist very calmly and politely!
Go eat some grass nerd
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complains about a lack of civility
Immediately calls a hexbear user a troglodyte and misgenders them (despite them very obviously having their pronouns in their name like all hexbear users) after being called out for racism
I wonder what social views this person could possibly have
I see no pronouns in names on my end boss.
lol stfu you dweebs whine about our pronouns all day long
doubt all you want
They’re literally right there in both of our instances
WefWef shows only the username.
when a conservative gets unreasonably triggered they are 5-15x more likely to start projecting
mothers milk dripping off their lips
this is very evocative dr ratso, would you like to talk some more about your relationship with your mother?
weird of you to think of breastmilk, anything you want to tell us
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Lmao, is that supposed to hurt my feelings?
But wait. Hold your horses there mr inclusivity. Is that a fatshaming insult?
Seethe
Your comment does not belong in this subreddit. It does not add to the topic, if you think comments don’t fit in the community do report them and move on.
Edit You also are quite a new user to the lemmy-verse from this month (compared to multiple year old users posting to you), which mostly is reducing the quality on communities on one hand and also got quite a few comments deleted. I urge you to read up on nettiquette and change your attitude if you want to be a positive contributing influence to this community.
Right, because hexbear coming in shitting on everyone and calling an entire community racist for unwittingly using a racist term in a context fairly removed from the original meaning is so helpful to discourse. Im only returning blows in kind. And I am so terribly sorry ye ole lemmy wizard, for speaking out of turn. Ill wait so I can speak with the rest of us, younglings.
“It’s not common knowledge that this term has racist origins, but it does and we should stop using it” == “Y’all racist”
yes thanks
Yes, clearly, that is the cool an levelheaded contributions hexbear brought to this thread. Absolutely no gaslighting here.
idk man I’m just reading OP and the only thing called “racist” is the word itself
I never had a single problem with OP itself, the sauce is in the comments.
Nobody has called the entire community racist, the callouts have been exclusively to people like you defending a term that obviously plays with one of the most common racial stereotypes about East Asians. Taking a racist term out of context doesn’t make the term not racist, it only means that a still racist term has gained even wider use.
Again I have personally not once defended the use of the term, I have only ever attacked hexbear code of conduct. I even stated that I am for not using it in a since (mod) removed comment. I thought the term was dumb even before I (like most of this comm) found out about the origins through this thread. The only context in which I have defended it is in this convo and only in the aspect of the response it has gotten from hexbear, which if you don’t feel is entirely disproportionate, we have nothing more to talk about.
Again I have personally not once defended the use of the term
You’re straight-up lying, kiddo.
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This is an example of the American cultural imperialism someone else was whining about above. In the UK a f@ggot is a type of food. There are adverts on the telly for it. A fag is a cigarette. Gypsy is not necessarily perjorative (it appears as a category on the census). Not sure what tr*p is, but if it’s tramp, that’s a homeless person. Also, a fanny is ladybits.
tr*p
This is generally a censor of the word “trap”. While it obviously has several non-slur meanings, it is also used as an extremely visceral anti-trans (and in particular, anti-transfem) slur :/
The implication is that transfem people are “secretly gay men trapping straight men into being attracted to them”. It is associated with simultaneous sexualisation, homophobia, and transphobia >.<. If someone called me that IRL I would be seriously worried for my safety, as that’s often the kind of thing people would say before either raping or killing or injuring a transfem person for “”“threatening”“” their fragile sexuality, then using the trans panic defense.
The term got it’s start on 4chan, and people used it for femboy characters in anime (who are often poorly translated and may actually be trans in a lot of cases), but the kind of dehumanisation aspect of it means it very very quickly became a viscious anti-trans slur :/
Ah, thanks.
Is f____t not used as a
pejorativeslur for gay men in the UK?I must revise my earlier reply. Watching a documentary about George Michael, it seems it was a current and offensive slur in the UK even decades ago. Apparently my childhood was sheltered from homophobia.
I’ve not heard it used so, but I imagine younger folk might use it that way, since we adopt US culture so much.
new world vocabulary.
lmao
Not sure I understand the joke?
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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.
I wasn’t aware of this, thank you for posting
Yes please, I agree.
ITT:
The "pick-me"s are almost as bad
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.
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?)
westerners trying to self-criticize their use of chauvinistic language
That’s the problem.
Westerner often force this rules towards everyone.
Like that one time someone got banned for using “nasi goreng” as their username with reasoning “it has similarity with Nazism” despite it’s on international group.
Or when Asian English group that usually co-exist within recognition of different culture suddenly has Westerner that policing everything about language. “Oh this is so offensive towards Asian”, while no one in group never know or even used the word in negative connotation.
While in reality because SEAsian are multi-language speaker, we just self moderate in case of potential language conflict, like budak in Malay is children, but in Indonesian means slave.
The thing is you aren’t the audience. Discussion about anti-Asian racism in English tends to be focused on the experiences of e.g. Asian-American people and on the racist abuse they get from white people.
It’s actually that exact kind of self-moderation, surely? “hang on, doesn’t this word suck, let’s not use it”?
Asian here and rice eater here.
Ah yes, you need all your ethos cred for this one. No pick-me behavior for the crackers here. Not like there are billions of others with the same description as you (including a bangladeshi immigrant like me). I didn’t bring my own race into this until the “Im asian and this is okay” posts happened.
It’s better to regain is neutral meaning instead of letting the racist weaponize neutral word.
Racists love “neutral words.” It’s called dog whistling. Racists get their plausible deniability while they get to signal and exchange with other racists on public forums like this one. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t intend for this to happen, it’s still facilitated here. There’s always the possibility of new words, or are you too personally attached to “rice” for that to happen?
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.
We are in a international, primarily english speaking lemmy instance by the developers of the project. Stop moving the goalposts here. We are not in your rhetorical places in “Asia” where there’s no negative connotation. Of course it will seem “western centric.”
For your last edit, fuck right off. People can see through your crocodile tears and self tokenization. This type of shit only works with white people who will accept your opinions more than others because it means they get to keep their status quo. Nice bringing up imperialism, you’d be great as a lapdog.
Unfortunately not surprised to see some unironic /r/asablackman going on here.
Absolutely. Do not claim it’s racist when language made its meaning neutral.
Sorry friend, but reasoning with these people is always changing.
If you think it’s ok and you’re not from the affected demography, you can’t have a voice and “you’re probably white”.
If you think it’s ok and you’re actually from the affected demography, you’re just too dumb to understand your condition and have to let the white saviors and the “right” people from your demography explain to you why you should be angry and offended at everything.
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.
I’ve sent you a private message before, about these discussions, and I offer again, if you need help I’d like to offer myself for the position, you can already see what my opinions are on this subject in previous posts. Feel free to send me a message if you wanna chat before. Cheers.
Me 🖐️
Done.
Sure, I’d be more than happy to become mod and enforce the rules here.
Happy to mod.
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TIL thanks for the heads up o7
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.
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.
What could rice have to do with computer customization?
Nothing, its a completely different meaning of the word rice.
Even if it’s distanced from the original meaning the word itself implies that racist joke.
Me and everyone I know didn’t know the history of the word at all until now. We didn’t think it implied anything, we just assumed it was another stupid nonsensical English word.
Nothing, its a completely different meaning of the word rice.
Apparently it isn’t though, or at least wasn’t.
We didn’t think it implied anything, we just assumed it was another stupid nonsensical English word.
I guess it would be hard to know what people who don’t know might conclude if they think about it. But don’t most slang terms have some kind of near-surface etymology? Maybe someone could mistake it for being related to the practice of putting damp electronics in rice somehow. Idk, do you think the people who are opposed to its use are just muckraking?
There are a lot of words and phrases that don’t make sense at all in English, so I usually don’t question things very much. Maybe I’m the weird one but I’ve never seen anyone ask about why we use the word rice.
Idk, do you think the people who are opposed to its use are just muckraking?
Idk what muckraking is, but I think those opposed to it are mostly correct in their thinking. I just think that this isn’t quite the same as other similar examples. This use of the word rice is so far detached from racism that most people don’t even know about the connection. There is no intention of racism, there is no perception of racism. I see no problem.
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?
Spokes. Via “bespoke”
I’m bad at naming things.
I don’t dislike it!
Ultimately as a practical matter, people are just way more likely to leave the other term if there’s alternatives floating around.
sounds too forced
“pimping out”, so there’s that…
i nominate baste/basting/basted
i’ll start using it if you start using it.
Hi Linguist, which side of the linguist camp you are?; the one that thinks the meaning of the language is fix and people should be following it or the one that let people decides how the language works and let it change overtime?
There aren’t really two sides of the linguist camp. That language changes naturally over time is well documented.
And new coinages are part of that process. ;)
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!
🤮
Yeah I’m actually amazed people are still using this term. Figures it’s about computers though lol, of course the antisocial nerds are stronger holdouts than car enthusiasts.
put japanese parts on a hot rod?
