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.

  • midnight@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    The shift change comment was to a hexbear user, as the screenshot shows. For what it’s worth I had to go to the hexbear instance to see the full thread, your reply was coming up with no way for me to view context so I wasn’t sure if I actually fucked up or what happened. We can blame Lemmy growing pains I suppose.

    I’m also just a Linux guy getting by. But I reject the notion that a term considered racist in one context continues to be so outside of that context, terms that only exist in a racist context (n word) not withstanding. All of the times I’ve seen rice used to describe a person’s DE changes has always been a point of pride and not pejorative. This one’s ripe to defang and the people interested in perpetuating it as racist are largely hexbear users and some stragglers that align with them on this point.

    That said I don’t care if the term changes or not, but the apparent brigading and piling on centered around hexbear users masquerading as “omg we’re just so popular” is laughable.