The Wikipedia definition seems to indicate it has origins as a racist term and I’ve never understood why unix users have adopted this terms instead of something benign like “themes” or “theming” which I remember being in use long before I ever heard “rice”. So what gives? Why use “rice” instead of “theme”?
My understanding of the term (from an asian american perspective I guess) is that it at most has a connection to race through the origins of ricing, and since the origins and current usage has never seemed derogatory and is simply about the Asian origins of automotive ricing I don’t think it’s racist at all. I see it as no different to any other term that reflects the origins of something that is connected to a specific ethnicity, especially when the term isn’t derogatory and isn’t used to otherize (which is how I consider model-minority stereotypes to be racist despite not being “negative”).