Unixporn

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Unixporn

Submit screenshots of all your *NIX desktops, themes, and nifty configurations, or submit anything else that will make themers happy. Maybe a server running on an Amiga, or a Thinkpad signed by Bjarne Stroustrup? Show the world how pretty your computer can be!

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Include a Details Comment
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No Racism or use of racist terms

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Hey, we should all really stop using racist slang to refer to customozation (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[+] [email protected] -6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[+] [email protected] -8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Also nonracists using a racist term doesnt make the term stop being racist.

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.

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.

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).

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

gay was reclaimed by gay people. do you see the difference?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

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”