Hey, we should all really stop using racist slang to refer to customozation

It's a stupid term that is based on an antiquated mindset where Asian people are not creative and cannot invent anything of substance; we are only able to poorly imitate what the West develops. It needs to die.

Also, I've been using and customizing the X Window-based desktop for 25 years and I'm not sure that the term "ricing" was ever used anywhere before Reddit and even then only within the past decade or so. Let it die with that culture.

Thank you for making this post. The number of times I've seen the term used here lately has been bothering me.

I agree, it's another example of racism being burned into the English language. You should always make an effort to change and adapt your vocabulary, to not do so is to endorse the very racist history that the term is based on.

Also the term just doesn't make sense? I have no idea what "rice" is supposed to evoke outside of its history in the car industry/communities. "Cooking" seems to be the better term because people on Unixporn "cook up" their desktop to make it as appealing as possible (to their tastes or to the tastes of the group). So a submission would be someone's "cook/dish." The whole "let them cook" remark is also a relevant catchphrase.

We can do better, and why disregard that opportunity? "Rice" is a two-faced compliment with racist roots. It deserves the bucket.

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.

100% agree!!

I've never used the term and the first time I've heard about it even without knowing the origins/meaning it already was clear to be a pejorative term.

The excuse the mods in the old r/unixporn subreddit was that the term was broadly accepted by the community.

Well guess what we are not reddit and one of the reasons I left reddit was because I was tired of being in communities like that. We can do better, let's shape our communities with the right values and not just carry on a legacy that should've died with reddit itself.

I wasn't aware of this, thank you for posting

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.

ITT:

Yes please, I agree.

Sry I've been an absent mod here. Would anyone like to help mod this community?

I've also added a no-racist terms rule to the sidebar.

TIL thanks for the heads up o7

I got called out for saying this once. At first I was like "what's racist about rice" but when I googled it everything that came up was an explicitly anti-asian meme.

So yeah the word is being used in the west as a racist term so non Asians should reconsider whether using the term helps or hurts their relationships with others within the communities we frequent. I think vigilance is better than ambivalence.

Linguist here. Totally agree the term should stop being used. As a practical concern, it would be easier to get people to stop using it if there were another term that was a drop-in replacement.

Yeah, we can say "customize" as the verb, but what about the noun? Sharing "customizations" doesn't really refer to the same kind of DE-specific customization as the other term.

Is there any such word in usage? If not, can we coin one and just start dropping it on forums?

In general I don't agree with the sort of broad language policing some people seem to be advocating for here, but this word does seem pretty inseparable from a racist joke. What could rice have to do with computer customization? Even if it's distanced from the original meaning the word itself implies that racist joke. So yeah probably better avoided and replaced.

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.

How the fresh fuck is this even a thing still? Even back in the 90's I heard dudes making gags about "Uncle Ben Hot Rods". You know. RICE IT UP!

GET IT? They're shitty race cars made by a shitty race who only makes cheap stuff!

🤮

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.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change

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.

Oh, shit, I never thought of that. Thanks for pointing it out

TIL the origin of the word.

But I am confused. Anyone offended for using the word?

When repos changed to main from master, I got problems.

People are hypersensitive over these words now.

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 !unixporn@lemmy.ml 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."

I live in an obscure asian country and I rice while I eat rice.

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.

til about this, but like, I doubt anyone uses this in a racist way though, far from it.

The hexbear squad is really brigading the fuck out of this thread.

Im asian. I eat and like rice, even on my setups. I'm gonna keep using rice cause its not my fault yall western imperialists fuck shit up and dont wanna be reminded of it. also very western centric debate. Good job debate perverts.

It is not racist and have nothing to do with asian men. But white men who riced asian cars.

I kinda thought this conversation would eventually happen. I have mixed feelings on the subject but am generally inclined not to use the term myself as I find it distasteful. But I think there's an important consideration for those who'd like to discontinue the term rice in this community: what language would we like to use instead? Specifically a good noun for referring to a given setup we've made. In therapy they teach you that stopping a behavior is a very hard thing to accomplish, and that instead you should always try to replace a behavior- I believe that idea is very relevant here

I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts on what they'd like to use instead

That's a good point. What do you use instead?

Interesting question.

!pcmasterrace@lemmy.world had a kind of similar conversation, with a poll.

Maybe that's something that should happen here too?

Nah, I like the term.

It refers to early 00s car culture, a race car had all go no show, a ricer had all show no go. It's just the next iteration of the term. And it's pejorative to anyone who does that shit, not asian men. I have no idea where y'all got that idea from.

Leaning into the "porn" part of unixporn, we could say we"fluffed" our setup. Because like fluffers, we're making things bigger an more attractive to show off.

It has a new meaning now. No one cares and few would bother looking up where it comes from. Languages are dynamic and change all the time. The word faggot meant a stick of wood but now it means something else and few would use it to refer to someone else. This doesn't mean we should change literature that was written before this change. tl;dr: the meaning has changed and no one cares.

Whoops..... First "rice" I saw I thought to myself.... Damn, that looks really nice.

  Really

N I

 C

 E

Thought I had it all figured out. FML.

I am disheartened but not surprised by the “obvious ethnicity based insult is not racist” comments here.

Huh, I was under the impression it was an acronym for Racing Inspired Cosmetic Enhancement or something along the lines of that. Parts that make the car look like a racecar but don't actually help it perform any different.

It could totally be a backronym that was generated after it's initial use though.

lmao like moths to a flame

@dessalines@lemmy.ml there's a lot of cryptofash in here begging the question that need to be banned, not merely have their comments removed

Sheesh, there sure are a lot of hexbear users here piling onto anybody with a different opinion

Edit: I went ahead and queried the lemmy database from a federated instance I have access to.

These are the top 3 instances commenting in this specific post at the time of writing (2023-08-25 08:02 UTC):

instance   | count
-------------+-------
hexbear.net |   205
lemmy.ml    |   106
lemm.ee     |    61

These are the top 3 instances and their comment counts on any post in lemmy.ml/c/unixporn this month at the time of writing:

domain    | count
-------------+-------
lemmy.ml    |   210
hexbear.net |   210
lemm.ee     |   100

You're reading that right, hexbear has a whopping FIVE comments in this community that are not part of this post.

For the curious, those 5 comments at the time of writing are:

• https://hexbear.net/comment/3722672
• https://hexbear.net/comment/3749006
• https://hexbear.net/comment/3722165
• https://hexbear.net/comment/3722091
• https://hexbear.net/comment/3790117

One of which is especially hilarious as we see a hexbear user that's been railing on people in this post using the very term they're condemning here. Strong convictions? Perhaps bandwagoning the hexbear teet? Who knows. Definitely not suspicious 🙄

I've always thought it's something to do with how you can customize fried rice to your heart's content, and the overall versatility of rice in general.

But given that it is offensive, what is the closest alternative that gives a similar, if not the same nuance without the offense? What do we mean when we say ‘rice’/‘ricing’ in desktop environment customization anyway?

Kinda curious as to what actual Asian folks, whether currently in Asia or of Asian descent, think.

I don't use the term anyway because I'm an old grognard and couldn't grok the lingo, but it seems to me that they're the ones other folks should be listening to on this.

So you are saying, all this time, we have been ricists!?

Yeah, I had absolutely no idea what "ricing" was even supposed to mean, like it doesn't look like it's short for anything, doesn't seem like an acronym for anything, it's not analogous or synonymous with anything, I can't see how "rice" is supposed to be metaphorical at all to cool looking linux desktops, and it's not an entirely new word like "rizz" or "yeet"

So by all accounts it's an absolutely unfitting word for what it's describing

Knowing the racist history of the term now, yeah that makes sense and yeah I vote we move to an objectively better term

Idk what tho, maybe "decore" cuz it actually describes that the focus is the look, that the DE is the Core of the setup, and sounds cooler than "rice"

"Decore" and "Decorizing" is probably the terms I'm personally gonna use atleast

Edit: unless I find a better term, I came up with this one on the stop

I don't understand where the problem arises exactly, there is no racist intent in its usage here, it's just a word, it's an empty container and we fill it with meaning. In this context it just means "customization", sure it's not a completely made up term and its origin is lowkey racist, but, as you stated yourself, not many know at all of that connotation, they go on to use it despite never meaning to use bad language on purpose, because it has simply acquired a different meaning, it was just the lingo they happened to find in the community.
There's plenty of words that had historically been bad and then became good, same the other way around. I believe that's the case here as well.

Even so, if an alternative word is proposed and favored, even just plain "customization" (which I feel would be better than replacing it with a lingo word, as it would make it easier for newcomers to understand what is being talked about more easily), I wouldn't be opposed, the main thing is to be able to convey the meaning, that's what that matters most in the end

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.

A lot of you need your blood pressure checked

I think the racists connotation came first, but I also heard it explained as an acronym - "Race Inspired Cosmetic Enhancement"

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.

It's not a pejorative toward asian men at all. Not everyone is as racist as you.