this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023

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Unixporn

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Submit screenshots of all your *NIX desktops, themes, and nifty configurations, or submit anything else that will make themers happy. Maybe a server running on an Amiga, or a Thinkpad signed by Bjarne Stroustrup? Show the world how pretty your computer can be!

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Hey, we should all really stop using racist slang to refer to customozation (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 years ago by blashork@hexbear.net to c/unixporn@lemmy.ml

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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.

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[–] NormalC@hexbear.net 20 points 3 years ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml -3 points 3 years ago (2 children)

That is actual bs. Rice doesn’t bother me - I don’t read rice with a racial connection, at all. Just doesn’t exist for me. It is food and something that’s been customized.

I say fuck it. Shatter the limitations of fraudulent history; don’t just go punk, go full cyberpunk.

The major culture is hung up in non issues; and why not? So go counter to the culture:

rice your desktop.

You do you however. I am not here to say how you should think and do.

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[–] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 29 points 3 years ago (3 children)

It's a term used to racially exclude people by calling Asian car enthusiasts tacky posers. Is that really the energy we want to bring (or rather keep) to the Linux community?

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[–] PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml -3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

I don’t think it matters.

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[–] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 22 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Can you be sure of that? And if it did matter to the public image of the Linux community, would agree to stop using that term, or is using a word that to this day has racist connotations more important to you than ensuring that all members of the Linux community feel welcome?

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[+] PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml -6 points 3 years ago (2 children)

I see a lot of assumptions that rice, not a racist term, is a racist term. shrug

You go to the grocery store, grain aisle, and there is a bag of rice. What pops into your head?

Me, a tasty grain that complements many meals.

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[–] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 22 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Ricing is a racist term. I am telling you right now that it is a racist term referring to a type of car modding that Asians are stereotyped as doing. It is explicitly used to deride and exclude Asians from the car enthusiast community. Anyone who's into cars or around people who are has heard this term, but you can Google it if you want.

What does it say about you that you'll deny basic, well known facts to defend using such an exclusionary term in a tiny community with a large amount of Asians in it?

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[–] PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml -4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

I think you are making shit up.

I have been around a ton of cars and car people. Rice was never used to describe Asians.

A ford focus with a huge wing? Rice

A civic with a massive ground effects? Rice

A twin turbo Supra with nitro? Tuned.

The ethnicity of the driver or country of origin never came into it, East Coast, West Coast.

Is hoopty racist? No. Neither is rice.

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[–] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 15 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Oh really? Do the whites you hang out with use the term refer to any car mod you don't like? Have you asked them where the term comes from?

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[–] PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml -4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Haha. I don’t make fun of ppl for their personal choices or their ideology. What is the point in that? Express yourself. Takes all kinds.

I don’t look to be offended nor look to offend.

Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

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[–] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 18 points 3 years ago

I'm not making fun of anybody.

If you want me to express myself then I will: I don't like you, and if I knew you irl, I would think less of you after this conversation.

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[–] Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Asian American into car culture here. Ricing and ricers are still derogatory and racist terms to this day. Do not mistake your ignorance of something that no one would bother to tell you for knowledge that it's not true.

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[–] PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

Aww man I am sorry to read that. I haven’t seen it personally; sorry you have. Where are you located where being Asian and into cars got you slurs? That is uncool.

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[–] Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

It was Indiana at the time, as far as getting cars and racism getting mixed together in one experience for me. These days I'm in Texas, but haven't engaged too much with the car culture here yet.

Edit: btw, sorry for my tone in my previous comment, I was honestly getting pretty worked up going through the comments in this post.

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[–] PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 years ago

All good. I am genuinely here just for cool desktops and probably shouldn’t have engaged at all as it just distracted from that.

I think what is interesting about online communities is how little impact they have in the real world, yet there is a feeling of impact.

For example, whether rice is in or out, will have no bearing on what happened to you or may happen again, which makes me sad.

Any chance of making a lasting change by winning hearts and minds is lost in a sea of win at all cost hyperbole. Real stories always matter my friend. Hopefully Texas is more chill for you.

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[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 12 points 3 years ago

As someone that was very into cars (still kind of am but not nearly so much) and tuner culture. Yes, "rice" in the context of customizing a machine to your specific performance needs has always had racist baggage and likely always will. This is a weird hill to die on bud, and it makes you look very sus.

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[+] eskimofry@lemmy.ml -6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Would you agree that a word that was so racist is now being demolished of it's original bad meaning and something inclusive is being built in it's place is a good thing?

A sort of reformation or curing? After all, racist words were not racist until racists started using those words to be racist.

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[–] Grownbravy@hexbear.net 22 points 3 years ago (1 child)

I’m seeing a bunch of tacked on cosmetic bits made to give the look of performance to computers. According to another post, that one-for-one matches my last known definition to the term.

Also nonracists using a racist term doesnt make the term stop being racist. Curing doesnt start by not meaning it when you keep using the racist term. You dont bandage a stab wound by continually stabbing the victim.

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[+] eskimofry@lemmy.ml -8 points 3 years ago* (2 children)

Also nonracists using a racist term doesnt make the term stop being racist.

It does though. Gay was used to mean happy. Now it means homosexuals. Inbetween, it used to be a slang... now it no longer is. There's nothing in humanity as fluid as language.

Curing doesnt start by not meaning it when you keep using the racist term. You dont bandage a stab wound by continually stabbing the victim.

Teaching people who are not aware that it's racist IS stabbing a wound that was healing (by other people who were making it mean something cool and inclusive).

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[–] silent_water@hexbear.net 23 points 3 years ago (1 child)

gay was reclaimed by gay people. do you see the difference?

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[–] Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 years ago

As an Asian American into both car and computer culture, I have not ever felt a desire to embrace and reclaim this word, that from its inception only ever had derogatory meaning. Any attempt to force this word upon me in the name of "reclaiming" it will only offend me.

All these people saying we should reclaim this word have no fucking clue what it feels like.

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[–] Grownbravy@hexbear.net 17 points 3 years ago

No. This framing is incredibly foolish. If a term is hurtful to a group of people, you stop using it in favor of other words, otherwise you demonstrate you dont care that it is hurtful to a group of people, hence “continually stabbing the victim”

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[+] HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org -6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

I'm curious if we have a detailed historic analysis of the origin of the term.

I always figured it came form the "rice burner" mocking for Japanese motorbikes and cars. I figured this was mostly a pick about their relatively low performance. Aside from the "Asians eat rice" source material, is that intended as an insult to Asians in general, or more directed to the design committees at Toyota and Honda-- that they couldn't design a car capable of burning petrol?

To try a parallel concept: If an x86-64 enthusiast made fun of an ARM chip by saying it was "manufactured on a crumpet substrate" would that be an insult against the British, or more using that it comes from a British firm to provide vocabulary for a product-related insult?

OTOH, I never really saw the term widely used to describe a desktop configuration before here, and it feels weird because of that more than anything else. I'm trying to remember if it was seen in the "PC Case Mod" community circa 2000, because they actually used a fair number of techniques and ideas from the car tuning scene that also used the "ricing" term (lots of cold-cathode lighting and weird 12v accessories)

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[–] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 24 points 3 years ago

I'm curious if we have a detailed historic analysis of the origin of the term.

If you want to do the research be my guest, but I'm telling you right now, I've only ever heard the term used to mock an Asian person's car mods.

If an x86-64 enthusiast made fun of an ARM chip by saying it was "manufactured on a crumpet substrate" would that be an insult against the British

made fun

There's you answer. It is disrespect based on ethnicity.

I never really saw the term widely used to describe a desktop configuration before here

Then you should be fine with not using the term, right? Why are you working so hard to defend a word you claim you don't see much? You have put all this effort into justifying using a word you have been told several times is racist that apparently other people don't use according to you.

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[–] triplenadir@lemmygrad.ml 27 points 3 years ago

yes, using bigoted terminology throughout tech is a great example of the cyberpunk DYSTOPIA that fiction warned us about.

meanwhile, in the political side of punk, we're antiracist and finding new words is the least we can do

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[–] eskimofry@lemmy.ml -4 points 3 years ago

If a word changes it’s general meaning in normal day use… from something so bad to something that’s no longer associated with said bad thing… is it really bad? What about gay then? That term has be co-opted by homosexual men. Do you suggest we stop using the word gay?

Why don't you like that words are being declawed from their original poisonous nature?

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