"Cast Off - Diversity wars are raging in the knitting world'

[AncientLights]

I've kept the title from the article in the print version of The Spectator 28 Sept, as I can't improve on it.

It's the most astonishing piece - well, astonishing and yet horribly familiar to us here. I'll summarise as it's not the done thing to do a big c&p job and would also be a kick in the financial teeth of the Speccy, who have done so much, via James Kirkup, to publicise the illogicality of the trans movement.

There is a knitter called Nathan Taylor whose online name is 'Sockmatician' - he sounds an interesting character, shall I say. Sockmatician seems to have cause huge offence (and here I will quote as it's so bonkers) by posting 'a poem on Instagram about 'diversknitty' in which he boasted it was a year since he had founded this hashtag, and asked that people use it kindly, rather than attacking one another'. Seems Taylor was committing violence against Bipoc (black & indigenous people of colour, it says here) by telling them how to make their arguments about inclusion, tone policing from a white man - utterly unacceptable.

The war started & raged on. Sockmatation has MH problems, was hospitalised, messages from his husband held no sway. Things got really bad with the yarn festival: yarn producers & other knitting personalities (who knew?) couldn't believe Sockmatition hadn't been uninvited, someone was glad she hadn't been able to attend after all as she'd have been unable to teach her session knowing he was down the hall. Unsupported allegations online about an assault. His patterns have been dropped from two books, one of which was the first official Harry Potter knitting book - the cover was reshot to remove Sockmatition's work. His business has suffered a 75% drop in sales.

There's a similar story about a Kate Davies who is based in the Scottish Highlands. She wouldn't join in denouncing people for their 'transgressions', so she's been attacked, too.

I read it thinking it must be an allegory but have come to the conclusion it's genuine. It is total, stark-staring madness and I can only keep saying to myself and to anyone else who will listen 'How on earth have we come to this?'

Zephaniah was the voice of sense in that article.

I think that some of those who live in cities have a skewed sense of the UK's ethnic makeup. The UK is 87% white. This, in and of itself, is not a moral failing.

2Rebecca Su.krita on Instagram has a saved story where she collated the responses when she asked for times people have encountered racism in the knitting world. Most of the responses are about stores and knit nights.

Agreed, the assumption that places with a very white population = racist is harmful, rural areas export people and urban areas import people, this has been the case for at least 200years, that's why cities are more diverse.

Thanks Wiggly, will do.

Antibles that is true. I saw the result of a survey of Muslim school kids which revealed that they way over estimated the Muslim population of this country. They seldom left their own narrow world, so they had no idea what was out there. I once had a conversation with a black guy in London who said that the UK should have a black prime minister. When I asked why 'should', he gesticulated in the general direction of Hackney and said 'look around you'.

Agreed, the assumption that places with a very white population = racist is harmful, rural areas export people and urban areas import people, this has been the case for at least 200years, that's why cities are more diverse.

There is also an assumption that white people = lack of diversity when in reality the white population is hugely diverse. Scots, English, Welsh, Irish cultures are all different and that's before you consider all the other European groups or the diversity within the cultures of the four UK nations.

Agree, my area of Scotland is over 93% white but has a large East European population and varies from wealthy students and university academics to deprived ex-mining areas with a lot of drug addiction. An area can have a diverse population and still be mainly white and heterosexual.

Ooh, which one did you get?

I got the Buachaille book. It's all based on using her Buachaille yarn, but I've got such a lot of remnants of dk yarn that I'm going to use that up by making lots of the 'Whigmaleeries' (stranded Christmas decorations, which are the least intimidatingly difficult pattern in the book!), before I buy any of her lovely yarn.

www.instagram.com/p/B3Pk1nxJOpu

Not quite sure what to make of this. On one hand if people are being bullied off IG that's terrible, but on the other it seems to be encouraging divisiveness.

www.instagram.com/p/Bz020Pqpduj

Earlier post by the same person which mentions the sock guy and how he apparently wasn't bullied. I'm sensing a double standard.

It really is awful that people from racial minorities are being bullied off SM. I have to say I have seen nothing to indicate it happens, so I'm obviously in a different part of SM. The bits I'm in are where 'white folks' tell us all to be better. I did follow Radical Black Feminist but she seems to have stopped which is a shame

The posts linked above must be referring to one of the woman who confronted Sockmathician, I noticed this morning that she has a new account. Instagram's reporting seems to be vulnerable to mass reporting by spite.

It’s a breath of fresh air to see this talked about outside of Instagram. The whole thing has been horrendous and is still ongoing. There are some brilliant videos on YouTube by Unsafe Space in which they talk to Tusken Knits - one of the original ones to be destroyed and explain how SJWs work, which is what they are calling these (predominantly) white women running around attacking everyone.

Here’s an interesting thing that proves they eat their own; Boyland dropped Tusken, yet now Boyland is over the coals for ‘sinning’ in some way. The aforementioned Scottish designer & journalist couple were instrumental in destroyed KD (and allegedly her friends!!) and now they are being shredded.

My absolute favourite to date is the aforementioned journalist posted a photo of them as a couple but bemoaned her additional chins ....the fat activists are all over that one. She’s ‘doing harm’ to them by criticising her own body. They encourage her to ‘reflect on the language she is using and how it may do harm to others’. They own them now - welcome to a lifetime of having your words quoted back to you and apologising for ‘doing harm’ via them.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=up7JgDsvrhI

^ this is well worth watching.

This sort of thing really is infiltrating a lot of different hobby worlds. I am not sure though that they are being targeted because they are female spaces, so much as women seem more inclined than men, overall, to create hierarchies in this way through language. It reminds me of nothing so much the way 14 year old girls behave at school.

I have found myself in an awkward place with basketmaking. My region has three basketmaking traditions from different cultural backgrounds. I learned how to make baskets from a famous black basket-maker, but I don't come from that community myself. I am now in the position of wondering if this is something I have to keep to myself lest I be considered to be "appropriating". Which I don't believe in, but I don't know that I want to get into confrontations over it.
A few people mentioned that class is forgotten in these exchanges. I agree, but there is something else I find odd and that is how only certain voices are allowed to speak for the oppressed groups. There is rarely a united viewpoint in any kind of group. Recently I argued a POV that someone thought was non-woke in terms of race, and I pointed out that any number of people of the relevant race thought the same thing. To which they replied "well, I am not going to police the views of POC. But know better, do better." To which I thought ??? Hoe the heck do you people decide which POC are the good ones you are supposed to listen to? These were not of course POC but I do notice a tendency for this sort of thing also to be claimed by some minority activists so I don't think that is all that is going on. There seems to be some desire to claim that certain communities do not include a diversity of views on important issues, I assume because that reduced the power claim that representing a whole community can give.

It's all very toxic.

Haven read the whole thread, but this is another controversy in the knitting world. Very interesting.

That's the same video that Lemonysnicket posted a few posts back!

@Goosefoot one of the things the SJW squad love to to is talk on behalf of entire groups - when it suits. It’s infuriating. They preach angrily of the “harm” being done to bipoc ....but how dare these mostly white women speak on behalf of all bipoc? And as Keri Smith in the video points out, even if they are speaking on behalf of a couple of mates or are bipoc speaking on behalf of bipoc, absolutely nobody on this earth has the right to speak on behalf of an ENTIRE group of people. How completely arrogant. She likens it to when women will say ‘every woman on the planet will have felt this’ ....and how rude and presumptuous that is. Nobody has the right to speak for anyone apart from themselves.

The latest is slagging off those calling for kindness because they’re “trying to silence bipoc” and they’re “weaponising kindness”. How the f*ck do you “weaponise kindness” and frankly, if kindness is a weapon, then whack me. These people aren’t trying to silence bipoc, they’re asking the bitchy piranhas to back off. The whole thing has driven me mad as I run a business in this arena and it’s been a toxic minefield since January. I haven’t and won’t join in - which according to one nasty cow makes me racist, and she tried to get me targeted. It didn’t work thankfully, but none of it’s about race anymore. It’s just bitches being bitches. There is one particular designer in this arena whom I can’t stand as she is always looking for a fight and she’ll leap on any politically correct bandwagon to have a go at someone. It’s women like her who are driving the charge, pretty pictures of knitting laced with toxicity.

Gosh, that was cathartic, thank you!

I experienced this toxic "call-out culture"/endless policing of hierarchies of oppression/pile-ons and purges in mainly American online communities I was part of 20 years ago. It seemed bizarre and often hilarious and those of us from outside it (Europeans pretty much) would marvel at it among ourselves, and be relieved that we lived in a more grounded sane world.

Well now it's everywhere, with po faced SJWs using ill-fitting American concepts and terminology and being ignorant bullies. I feel really, really colonised by this bullshit. Now there's an irony.

absolutely nobody on this earth has the right to speak on behalf of an ENTIRE group of people. How completely arrogant

I've almost come to the point where I can't stand to hear anyone say they are speaking on behalf of any group, and yes, that includes feminists saying they are speaking for women. In fact I know women who disagree with certain common feminist ideas do get really ticked when feminists claim to be speaking for women and I can't really blame them. I've been really trying to be careful of my own language with this because it's an easy habit to fall into, and really just make the point or argument I think is relevant rather than saying I am somehow making the feminist argument, or the argument that respects women or fights for them, or that I'm centring one group - all of which presumes the opposite is true of whomever is saying something different, which often isn't the case. And I have come to wonder anyway, does that really matter? Maybe what really matters is whether it's true, not who happens to agree.

What really grates in this particular area is it’s been predominantly white women chasing others with their pitchforks. If a poc is offended and upset by something someone on Instagram says and they feel the need to share this, I’ve no doubt an apology will be forthcoming. But instead it’s white women assuming poc must be offended and then they demand and hunt down an apology. If anything less is forthcoming the tirade continues. Taylor likens it in the video to when you force a child to apologise to a sibling - it’s not genuine. You’ve stepped in and forced it, so it’s pretty worthless. And of course when people say they can’t see the problem, they get told that’s because they are PART of the problem and have white privilege....it’s amusing when said person comes back and says ‘errr I’m a poc’ and then suddenly it’s ‘ah....well you’re not the right sort of poc because you should be offended...’. Because, y’know, we all need to be mortally offended by the same things.

I think sock is a bit arrogant, maybe he should have kept quiet, but nobody deserves what happened there. I bought him a coffee and I’m delighted he’s had so many bought for him as that is enraging the sjws. I bought him one just so that in my mind I’m very clear that I don’t stand with those twits. It’s not to say I’m a sock-fan, but he gets my vote over those hyenas any day.

What I find so extraordinary is that the people being bullied for alleged racism are themselves much more right on than average. Nathan Taylor started the diversknitty hashtag, Kate Davies is clearly very woke.
I can well believe there is racism in the knitting community, I can see that it must be wearing and depressing and I quite agree that people of colour shouldn't have to put up with it. But why on earth has it been decided that these are the people to go after for it? I think the only possible answer can be that this isn't about making things better, it's about people enjoying bullying.
Over the years I have known a couple of white people who were active against racism - one ended up a lawyer in New Zealand doing pro bono work for Maori land rights, and the other spent many years working with museum anthropology collections developing ways they could be reinterpreted to raise the self esteem of children who were normally only shown white images of beauty and technological achievement. Neither of these people's practices involved bullying anyone and I can think of times with both friends when they opened my eyes and made me see the world in a less white-centric way, but never through shaming.
The concept of 'tone policing' has been misused to mean 'I am allowed to be as nasty as I can and you aren't even allowed to call me out on it' and now we're at a point where attempting to shut down the business of a well-meaning person when they haven't said anything approaching actual racism, is somehow positive activism. Words cannot express how little respect I have for these self righteous bullies.
Anyway, I am making the Kate Davies owlet sweater for ds2 and am going to buy a sock pattern from Nathan Taylor next. Any other recommendations of designers who have stood up against the bullying and been punished for it would be very welcome.

I can well believe there is racism in the knitting community, I can see that it must be wearing and depressing

I wonder about this though. I mean, is there actual reason to think that there is some sort of endemic or systematic racism in the knitting community? I would expect that there are some racist people who knit just because lots of people knit, but that's not quite the same thing.

People have talked about lack of representation, lack of non-white vendors, but I am not totally comfortable calling that racism. Some hobbies have for reasons more about demographics than anything else tended to have people from certain backgrounds involved in them. Is there more going on then that? There can also be a change in who is interested and involved, and people making an effort to include people from the newer demographic, without it indicating that the previous state of affairs was about racism.

I tend to think of knitting as being a more common hobby in rural areas than in cities, at least until fairly recently. (last 15 years, say.) I'd expect the type of ethnic diversity to reflect that somewhat.

I realise we are now supposed to accept, pretty much without question, that if someone feels something is racist than it is, but I'm not sure that is always reliable.

Meghan Murphy on 'Cancel Culture'.

unherd.com/2019/10/soon-well-all-be-cancelled/

Cancel culture is not about righting wrongs or making the world more tolerant — it's an addiction to power