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.
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?)
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ITT:
I’m going to continue using it.
bravely being a racist in line with social norms, our hero!
Sure, and I will lose no sleep.
Way to engage with the subject matter, no justification at all, nothing. You’re part of the problem you do know that?
Way to ad hominem. You’re part of the problem of people not taking actual hateful language seriously. Most people do not want to be offensive, but being told every single day that something they said offends n=1 group of people will cause them to begin to tune it all out.
Ah yes, the good old “We have so many problems that its better to just ignore them than try to fix even one thing.” There is so much hateful language because even if you use a cartoonishly naive take that racism ended with the civil rights act, that is still almost 200 years of racism shaping the way we talk about things. It takes some time to undo 200 years of racists inventing terms and trying to pass them off with winks and nods. It will take a whole lot longer if we’re so lazy as to not even make the attempt.
My justification is most people don’t care. You would be hard pressed to find an Asian person offended by this.
The “most people don’t care” and the “find me an Asian person offended by this” are both non-talking points.
- You are in a thread about this exact issue, it seems that there are people who care, and you have to engage with that.
- So? Does that mean we should stop discussing this? How are we hard-pressed when this thread exists?
I didnt say “find me an Asian person offended by this”. I also didnt say you should stop discussing it.
You also didn’t say anything of note besides pulling your justification out of your ass. I have nothing to really discuss because you didn’t give anything worth talking about.
My justification is most people don’t care. You would be hard pressed to find an Asian person offended by this.
Source: trust me bro.
no cracker, you just don’t want to change so you pretend you not being offended means no one is
What is it with Commies and not being able to read? Nowhere did I say no one is offended by this. I said most people aren’t. I don’t care if a small amount of people are upset by it. It not realistic to change language on a large scale everytime a tiny tiny percentage of people get upset.
I agree with you but I’d go a step further:
Stop using Linux and just go back to Windows, no need to hurt yourself over a fad
it’s not going to stop unless you have a good replacement
No.
This is not a word made to be racist, but stolen to be one in the eyes of a few.
The mare fact that you stop using the term rice, because “it’s racist” implies that you’re being one, by saying the racists are right about using the term in a racial and derogatory way. Instead of using the word normally, as has always been here.
If tomorrow greetings becomes racist, because it’s discovered that in their origins were racists the ones who greeted themselves, will you stop greeting people?
Im pretty tired of seeing this stupid propaganda spread everywere and everyone celebrating it.
You will never be morally superior. You really are not helping any one, you have no altruist intentions, you have no repercussion on reality. You are an attention seeker twisted by social media and social engineering into a mockery of a sane person’s mind.
I’m not bothered by it, but it is tacky.
When I was growing up, the term wasn’t necessarily directed specifically towards Asian people, but Asian manufactured cars themselves. IE a Honda with a body kit and a loud muffler would be referred to as a “Rice Grinder” by some. It doesn’t register in this context to me as racist, but definitely culturally insensitive and stupid.
I’m okay with the move to not use it.
I honestly don’t know what’s the problem here and I’m speaking from a person coming from ASEAN which is the one of the most discriminated group of people in the Asian. You have to place the term into the context to determine whether it is racist or not. If you’re describing an Asian product a ricer with the point that it is load, this is racist. Otherwise, ricing shouldn’t be a problem here. But then again, if you find it offended despite not being an Asian, just use other terms that suit your taste. The “master” shouldn’t and must not be used with “slave” in the same text to refer to anything that implies subjugation. But then again, how about the master who is highly skilled in their own field? What do we have to refer such people? And interestingly, not a lot of people have any feeling over the words “monkey”. This term is generally used in a pejorative way to describe people from ASEAN, implying that we haven’t evolved. Should we stop using the term “monkey”? A lot of these are depended on the context, if you have any little sense and basic on linguistic. In the end, I’ll be still using ricing to describe my extensive customisation and you will be using other terms. If your proposed term becomes the dominant term, then for the sake of making people easier to understand what I’m saying, I will use that term too.
The origin of the word “monkey” is for the animal and “master” for skilled person or hierarchical boss while the origin of the word “ricer/ricing/riced” is explicitly and only a racist insult
If your proposed term becomes the dominant term, then for the sake of making people easier to understand what I’m saying, I will use that term too
You would’ve went wild in the USA during slavery times
“ricing” means customisation, that’s it. That’s the context. It’s not about the origin of the word, otherwise the “f”-word that ends with “t” should be used in your own logic. “gay” was used pejoratively during medieval time, does it mean when we’re calling homosexual people that proudly label themselves as that is being homophobic here? It’s about the meaning of the word in the context where it’s being used. If “ricing” is being used in the context of de, then I don’t see a problem here. If you use “ricing” to describe anything that appears loud to you, then for sure you’re being racist.
“f*ggot doesn’t mean gay people”
“tr*p doesn’t mean trans people”
“why can’t I nword if it’s in a hip-hop song, they use it”
“g*psy doesn’t refer to Romani, it’s just what you say”
“r*dskins is a traditional name for my football team it’s not racist!”
You get to join this long line of people talking absolute crap, desperately trying to avoid change because you’re incapable of self-reflection and admitting you’ve been blind to this mistake for so long. You will piss and whine and piss and whine about it until eventually accepting it, like all the others historically.
Whoops… First “rice” I saw I thought to myself… Damn, that looks really nice.
ReallyN I
C EThought I had it all figured out. FML.
As an east Asian that eats rice every day, I must say that I don’t consider this term racist at all. The meanings of words shift over time. For example, nice used to mean “foolish, ignorant, frivolous, senseless,” but now it means “kind, thoughtful.” Gay used to mean “lighthearted, joyous,” then a slang for homosexuals, and ultimately became the term with which many homosexuals choose to describe themselves. Rice might have been a racist term, but now what it means is “to extensively customize one’s desktop system to one’s liking, especially Linux systems.” It no longer is racist.
I disagree.
Ricers, in the 80s, as a term that referred to Japanese cars (Honda, Toyota) who burned rice instead of gas. This is bad. Full stop.
From there, rice, in the 90s-00s, referred to the Race Inspired Cosmetic Enhancement: typically bolted onto Honda and Toyota, it moved from that to any cosmetic car customization 10s.
Now we are in 20s, and rice refers to customizations that represent one’s personal choices regarding cosmetic enhancements.
Is that a bad thing?
Why should a word be locked in on a definition from 40 yrs ago? Why should it be stuck in the past?
Why not reclaim a word? Customizing a desktop is a labor of love. It takes a decent amount of time, and is deeply personal, representing one’s own taste.
Are you fucking stupid, you think Japanese cars used to run on rice?
Why not reclaim a word? Customizing a desktop is a labor of love. It takes a decent amount of time, and is deeply personal, representing one’s own taste.
Or why not find our own words? Words aren’t “locked” in on a single definition, but rather carry their whole host of definitions and history with them. You have to judge diction on all its fronts. Reclaiming a word means being part of the group that the term has actively disparaged (ex: reclaiming words like “queer”) . Using “rice” is not an act of reclaiming in this context and we shouldn’t view it that way.
- it started as something racist
- but then—
We can stop right there
You want to be close minded? That’s on you.
I dont see how you can defend this. You acknowledge it’s based on a racist term. There’s no reclamation going on, you just lifted context and addressed none of the problems. And no part of you is saying “we could probably use another work here” in all of this?
Defend what?
How is rice racist? Japanese cars were called ricers for a brief moment 40 yrs ago. It is derogatory towards two Japanese corporations.
Where are people entering the equation?
Are you sure you don’t have a you problem?
Note - people can call their setups as they please. This is unixporn. Call it my desktop $ shot for all I care. I am not into rules in this case; my convictions end with me, as that is our shared limit.
are you white by any chance
You’re not disregarding someone opinion based on race per chance.
white isn’t a race
It’s also something somebody can’t control. So it’s still shitty to ask them that.
TIL thanks for the heads up o7
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.
