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.
I just realized that “racer” with an Australian accent is “ricer” with an American accent. That makes it sound less mean.
it’s not going to stop unless you have a good replacement
The term is a Reddit-ism that should die with Reddit.
- xwinman, which dates to the last millennium, uses the terms “styles” and “setups”
- boxshots.org is a site from around the turn of the century when *box style window managers were all the rage, uses the term “shots” as short for screenshots
- linuxquestions.org and daemonforums.org use the terms, “mods,” “styles,” “themes,” “customizations,” and “setups”
So you are saying, all this time, we have been ricists!?
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.
Identifying and making fun of certain behaviors is not racist. It can be used in a racist context, but it’s not racist in itself. Do you all believe that the majority of people saying “my rice” have racist intents?
You don’t have to prove/have intent in order to perpetuate a racist act. The “racist context” is the use of the term (which originates in the car industry as a pejorative) itself, you’re missing the point.
Do you all believe that the majority of people saying “my rice” have racist intents?
That only strengthens why “rice” should be challenged, people are unknowingly using the word just because it’s the established lexicon of the group and tied so closely with that group’s identity.
I just do not think it’s rational to equate pejoratives and racism.
In my opinion, it’s not meaningful when you use the word racism to describe something regardless of intent. What it really means is that you have been offended (which of course can be a bad thing as well, but not necessarily). “Offensive”, “rasist” are both words describing the motives of the act, it’s not how you receive it. People will always receive information differently, and that is why I don’t think it’s sane to use the definition you provided. I do believe that your definition of “racism” is not the literal meaning of it either, what does the lexicon say?
The real issue I see is that it increases the risk of dispute, even when there was no intent to start an argument. I believe this is part of why media is creating such chaos in our society, not for good reasons and just for clicks.
I respect your answer but I have to disagree.
The real issue I see is that it increases the risk of dispute, even when there was no intent to start an argument… I believe this is part of why media is creating such chaos in our society
Ah, respectability politics. Dispute is so horrible that it must be avoided at all costs. It’s creating all this chaos!
You know your exact rhetoric is used by racists to create plausible deniability for themselves. The reason racists use words with double meanings is because people like you will always come and talk down to others who call it out. Let me guess: which part of the “media” is creating chaos in society?
it’s not meaningful when you use the word racism to describe something regardless of intent. What it really means is that you have been offended
The pejorative comes from a history rooted in racism. Racism does not require intent because it’s a system of bigotry with the intent to control others and common speech. This is where “dogwhistles” come from, words that on the surface seem okay but are really just signals to other racists. You can’t just always assume that people “made a mistake” in every situation.
I think it’s possible to find an old mass murderous dictator using your rethoric.
I would argue the term “ricing” or “ricer” is not racist in the discriminatory sense unless used negatively. Rice is good, and Asian food uses a lot of rice. It’s most definitely a stereotypical term and that can be problematic in its own ways. Stereotypes can be a slippery slope to racism sometimes.
I do think the majority of people using the term probably didn’t even think about how it is derogatory. In my area, I knew car club people who were proud to drive Japanese cars and call themselves rice related things.
I choose to not use the term, because I respect others feelings towards it. It was also never in my vocabulary to begin with as I am not a car person.
My Opinion is this:
- Racist/Able-ist words were once normal words. Gay used to mean “Happy” (this applies for other words probably, but I am not able to recall at the moment)
- Many people had no idea that ricing was a racist slang. They wanted to use it to describe a cool new thing that’s inclusive.
- Would you agree that a word whose racist meaning is forgotten and it now referring to something inclusive and cool is a good thing in general?
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.
Not saying that this is a bad thing, but it’s kind of amazing how opinions of the public can shift so drastically within a month: https://lemmy.ml/post/2080934. Last month another user posted in the very same [email protected] asking whether people consider the term “rice” racist. The majority opinion back then was “if you get offended over a term like this you should take a break from the Internet.”
Interesting question.
[email protected] had a kind of similar conversation, with a poll.
Maybe that’s something that should happen here too?
I was also very disappointed that the users there voted against the change. The name has a bad history, and there’s no better time to change a community name than when you make a move to a new platform.
This isn’t neatly as big of a change, though. I don’t think a poll should be needed. The mods should just take a stance against racism and enforce that the term not be used.
Why is there huge pushback in this thread from reclaiming a word by changing it’s meaning from a racist one to something cool and inclusive?
because the people doing the “reclaiming” aren’t the targeted minority.
Hi. Targeted minority here. I do not, and have not ever wanted to reclaim this term. I’d argue against calling it reclaimable at all, since to reclaim would require the term to have ever had a valid use to begin with before it became a racist perjorative.
I don’t want to see this used, because it hurts me to see it. This is due to the deep pain that racism has caused to me, even in my very blessed life. While I get that you have good intentions, I want to clarify that your actions will only lead to you causing me further pain.
I’d hope the moderators here will take a clear and firm stance on the matter instead of making a poll. Polls in this context would only shift blame away from the mods of this comm and onto the community at large. The comm description references the term, so it goes all the way to the top.
I agree with you, but I’m not that confident as the moderation had a few questionable actions in the past (pushing this community to LW, not moderating it for a while)
I live in an obscure asian country and I rice while I eat rice.
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 may 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.
As an Asian American, I assure you this is offensive to me. This is not a word that has shifted in the common vernacular here to mean anything that doesn’t still have a strong base in its racist roots. For example, ricing your car still has derogatory undertones.
I respect your freedom to choose which terms to consider offensive, and I do not plan to talk you into accepting terms offensive to you. Nevertheless, I want to say that while “ricing your car” does have derogatory undertones, “ricing my Linux system” just does not have the same undertone. Ricing cars, as in the racist context, means customizing cars so heavily that it becomes an abomination. Ricing a Linux system, on the other hand, is the act of making a Linux desktop system as aesthetically pleasing as possible.
Oh, shit, I never thought of that. Thanks for pointing it out
TIL thanks for the heads up o7
It is not racist and have nothing to do with asian men. But white men who riced asian cars.
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.
