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.
“ricing” means customisation, that’s it. That’s the context. It’s not about the origin of the word, otherwise the “f”-word that ends with “t” should be used in your own logic. “gay” was used pejoratively during medieval time, does it mean when we’re calling homosexual people that proudly label themselves as that is being homophobic here? It’s about the meaning of the word in the context where it’s being used. If “ricing” is being used in the context of de, then I don’t see a problem here. If you use “ricing” to describe anything that appears loud to you, then for sure you’re being racist.
us queer people use “fa__ot” for ourselves all the time, other people don’t get to, great example 👏
please don’t do this with slurs. some of us have trauma.
I don’t agree that it’s wrong to write out slurs when talking about reclaiming them, but I edited the post out of solidarity for your experience.
“f*ggot doesn’t mean gay people”
“tr*p doesn’t mean trans people”
“why can’t I nword if it’s in a hip-hop song, they use it”
“g*psy doesn’t refer to Romani, it’s just what you say”
“r*dskins is a traditional name for my football team it’s not racist!”
You get to join this long line of people talking absolute crap, desperately trying to avoid change because you’re incapable of self-reflection and admitting you’ve been blind to this mistake for so long. You will piss and whine and piss and whine about it until eventually accepting it, like all the others historically.
These are of course bad words, but it ignores words that have decreased in sensitivity as they’ve moved away from their original meaning. How much intent should we unknowingly accept from words we don’t know the origins of?
The word “daft” used to be used as a term for someone “crazy” or “mad”. Nowerdays this has been socially softened to be used when someone makes a basic mistake.
Lame used to be for someone physically impaired but now is used to denote something that’s uncool.
And then if we wanna dive super deep into it and we look at a lot of high fantasy, the origins are possibly abhorant. Some species are believed to have been directly influenced by racial stereotypes in their formation.
Should all high fantasy be destroyed because of this? Or have we socially evolved past using those comparisons as a way to separate each other in society?
What if we learn to make new meaning for these words and forget the old ones? Are you able to forget and move on? Or are you too stuck in your ways to see everything for what it was once and not reform the world around you?
What if you adopt a new word instead of trying to rehabilitate a racist one? Are you able to learn and use new words? Or are you too stuck in your ways to realise that words have meaning beyond the only connotation you know about?
If only there was a far more popular word for MODifyING and customizing something, software especially.
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Rationalize all you want - a racist term is a racist term.
So pls don’t use the term “monkey” ever again since it’s been used as a racist term.
Constant outrage isn’t healthy or productive. Context is important too.
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That one was asking for it though!
in fairness I interpreted that reply as encouraging
