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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are you white by any chance
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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.
It’s really not shitty to ask if they have the background to understand what racism is to people who experience it. I grew up blessed with a good community, and experiencing racism for the first time when I moved away is still one of the most painful things I’ve ever felt.
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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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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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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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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.
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)
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.
There’s you answer. It is disrespect based on ethnicity.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
gay was reclaimed by gay people. do you see the difference?
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.
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”
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
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?
We can stop right there
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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?
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They were not called that “for a brief moment” it’s been used to put down import tuner cars for decades by people who’d rather drive mustangs and camaros. It was meant to put down:
It’s so obviously loaded with racist connotation that I dont know why you’d want to defend it so badly.
Also it’s not two manufacturers. Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mistubishi were all putting out sporty cars that were getting performance numbers rivaling v8 block american cars at the time
It was not a brief moment, it’s still used that way to this day in modern car culture.
I disagree. People who weren’t there when the term was racist are only aware of it being racist because it was revealed to be a old racist term.
It was racist WITHIN MY OWN LIFETIME unless you fell out the applecart yesterday that still applies to you.
I am constantly amazed at how many people online seem to have fallen off of the turnip truck yesterday.
That’s an incredibly narrow minded view.
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😠
No one thinks any cars actually burned rice to run, they were saying that’s how the term originated (from a racist joke). But let’s just jump straight to cussing people out and personal attacks.
Oh no, I jumped straight to cussing people out and conducting personal attacks against somebody trying to argue for continual use of a racist term
You’re plainly in the wrong here in terms of behaviour. But I also know there’s no getting through to you based on your behaviour.
You’re a tone policing dweeb arguing in support of being racist. If you need more context for the history of the term, please read further here
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so you have no opinion and you decided to get mad at the person cussing out the racist guy?
Why don’t you watch YOUR behavior
You just called her a dipshit, why are you resorting to personal attacks?
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Yeah I should have said acting like a dipshit. But I’m glad that’s the only thing you were able to focus on lol.
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Not OP but, You’re missing the point. This fact about the word rice is new to a lot of folks here, including me. You’re hellbent on proving that everybody is in on some racist circle that’s perpetuating the use of this word.
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? Then I would call you a reactionary.
This is why we’re in this thread trying to educate you, my child.
[Citation Needed]
Any acronym other than the name of an organization can be presumed a retronym until proven otherwise