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.

  • KnilAdlez [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    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?

    • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      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)

      • KnilAdlez [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 year 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.

      • KnilAdlez [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        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?

        • PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • KnilAdlez [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            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?

            • PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              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.

                • PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  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.

                  • KnilAdlez [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year 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.

              • Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 year ago

                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.

                • PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  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.

                  • Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    1 year ago

                    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.

          • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year 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.

    • eskimofry@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Grownbravy [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • eskimofry@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          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).

            • Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year 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.

          • Grownbravy [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year 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”