Oh, I had only ever heard this term in the context of Linux desktop customization. Like in the context of superfluous over the top additions that look pretty but ultimately do not add anything to a system and may to some extent degrade performance.

I dont know why I never connected it with the car scene or with racist attitudes. I'm ashamed to say I think I've used the term myself once or twice. Thanks for sharing an explanation of the history of this evidently very racist term, I imagine there are others like myself who have failed to make that connection.

Idk why its so hard to just say "setup". I'm not sure that a use case this particular warrants its own terminology.

"Rice" as a food or plant, that's fine. "Rice" as a word for a group of people, not really

Thank you. I'm Asian and it is honestly a bit maddening when I get white-splained as to why the term isn't racist towards Asians.

I agree with the overall message here; there's definitely better words for customisation of a Window Manager/Desktop Environment.

I can't agree that everyone using that term is racist though. I doubt that everyone who uses it is doing so to discriminate or abuse another race. As proven by this thread, the history of that word isn't exactly common knowledge in the spaces people are using it.

"bigot" might be a better term to describe people that know the history of the word and actively refuse to change their ways. It feels like throwing "racist" on here where it doesn't exactly apply sort of dampens the impact of the word. But that's just me.

It started out as a pejorative (like a cheap car with cheap mods) but has become a positive term associated with customization and a respect for effort involved regardless of financial resources (sometimes cheaper being more impressive).

So uh... Nah I'm gonna keep saying that. You do you.

But that's how I remember to Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate injuries

I appreciate the history lesson. I was always really confused by the term, but just accepted it as a silly random easy to remember word.

I’d prefer if it wasn’t hidden in the comments tho. Presenting it this way is very much inviting conflict, considering most people have no clue.

hewwoo, so uhm what is a more apropriate thing to call my vewy pwetty laptop ui setup?

You can't just un-racist a word because it makes you feel bad man.

Well then, I hope you never use the word slave, slavery, or any of the derived words, seeing as etymologically they're a pejorative for Slavic people. And that's just the first example that comes to mind.

I got called out for saying this once, and went back and looked it up. I had meant it sort of neutrally, and there are a lot of neutral uses of it out there, but there are probably just as many clearly negative/racist uses of it, and practically no positive uses.

There's a way of being a racist that is like crypto-racism. It appears neutral, but actually moves the ball forward for racists. And my experiences with many many different kinds of people, is that the people who are best at this are like hardcore Nazis.

I personally am not someone who thinks that advocacy and allyship begins and ends with saying or refusing to say certain words. I think there are a lot of really serious problems with the current liberal establishment posture towards race, where you continue to be heavily and unfairly exploited, and now imprisoned or deported because of skin color, but politically we will make sure people aren't allowed to say certain words anymore. But also being conscientious of our speech is a part of it, whether we like it or not. Ultimately it isnt some great loss of my freedom if I decide to call a Yamaha motorcycle a "Yamaha" instead of a "ricer". I have a large enough vocabulary that I can spare a word or two.

I feel like a lot of people here need to stop taking this information so damn personally. You didn't know, great, that means you're not racist. Now you do know. So just... Stop? That's it. OP wasn't even a dick about it.

Personally, I'm grateful when I get a heads up that certain terms are racist, so thank you OP!

Race Inspired Cosmetic Enhancements. That's what rice has always meant to me, and as far as I know everyone around me. You can rice an American car and you can rice a German car just as much as you can rice a Japanese car.

I think this kind of linguistic prescriptivism is one of many things wrong with modern anti-racism movements. It's such a non-issue.

Just use bosozoku or dekotura instead

Calling the term "rice" in connection to focusing on aesthetics over preformance racist just seems insane to me. There are objectly racist uses of the word rice to harm Asians. However when 99% of the community never even correlated this useage of the word to anything derogatory twords asians, and even use it positivly when someone genuinely likes JDM or overbuilt cars, the word stops being racist

You cant claim racist undertones to a word when people don't corelate that word whatsoever to anything derogatory twords Asians. The modern use of the word spoke about a car that looked like a racecar but didn't have the preformance of one, making it "ugly", and then branched to become a positive term when talking about putting lots of efforts into the aesthetic of something

The evolution of the word is not a moral failing but a redirection from a derogatory borderline slur to a word that captures the idea of "looks over preformance"