"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?'

I read that article and it reminded me of this thread.

Once you did a bad, there is no amount of apologies or grovelling that’ll make it right. Cancelled.

She writes well doesn’t she. Don’t agree with MM on everything but she’s beautifully articulate and clear-headed.

Once you did a bad, there is no amount of apologies or grovelling that’ll make it right. Cancelled.

I heard an interesting interview on the radio a while ago about this. I don't know if the guy being interviewed had written a book or what as I missed the beginning. But he was talking about how there was this idea in the late 19th century that modernity was going to free us all from the endless guilt of moralism and religion. Nietzche and freud and even existentialism would let us grow into adults without hand ups. But somehow, it has been almost the opposite, we still have moralism and guilt, and don't seem to have any real social, or even in many cases personal, mechanism to purge or resolve the guilt.

As an example, it's become usual here to regularly have groups state at the beginning of meetings, the top of documents, and such, that they exist on the unceaded traditional territory of the local indigenous people. It's at the beginning of school announcements, political meetings, or if you get a report card at university it's written at the top. Yet, there seems to me no proper response or mechanism to take action with regard to this information, or to resolve the relationship. It's just a seemingly endless admission of guilt.
I can't help but think this is unhealthy and likely to lead individuals to a kind of hypocritical relation to statements of fault, or a social backlash.

Power is definitely a huge element in all of this. Some people have simply found a big stick to beat others with and are happily thwacking away.

A deeply bizarre story

I did stand up and say it was bonkers on a thread and had become a horrible bullying campaign and they tried to come for me because I run a business in that arena. I was being “problematic” apparently by being anti-bullying. I say tried, because it failed and the (white) bully who sent a message or messages about me to others got put back in her place by them. My customers are really really lovely people and I’m not sure they’d believe it anyway, but I was seriously worried - enough to think I can’t say anything. That’s how it works isn’t it. They scared me. I said no bullying and they tried to get me “cancelled”. Trolling at its finest by 50 year old Margaret who wanted to take me down. Wtaf?! How bitter are these people?

But I’m done with it now. I’m just laughing at it. We tell our kids when someone says something nasty and untrue “just ignore them” - and I’m taking my own advice. Some helpful people outside of and inside of the community are coming into Instagram to be a voice of reason and give us all a bit of courage.

It seems ludicrous when you’re not in that world, and it is, but it’s pretty scary when you’re inside it. It’s nice to be able to come here and just breathe and let it out!

Adding to this thread because I've been on Ravelry for years but didn't know about any of this--I'm pretty alarmed that the SJW culture has permeated it so much. And I am what Americans would call a 'PoC' (though I don't like the term myself). I also work in a university teaching painfully woke students who see nothing wrong in denouncing lecturers for being white. It's all getting too much for me, and now I can't even take solace in procrastinating on Ravelry :(

KiCap as you don't like PoC, what you would describe yourself as?

Are the woke denouncers themselves white?

@SeaRabbit I've heard some non white people say that POC is a racist term in itself because it lumps everyone together. So black, Indian, Chinese etc all in the same boat.

And I am what Americans would call a 'PoC' (though I don't like the term myself).

Interesting. I am always a bit wary of saying so because it comes across a bit 'one of my friends is black' but in real life none of the not white people I know like the term 'people of colour'.

The black people prefer black, the Chinese people prefer Chinese. Those of subcontinental origin are more mixed, some prefer Asian, some Pakistani or Indian.

I've not heard anyone describe the term people of colour as racist, but it certainly invokes eye-rolling and I get the impression they feel it is a term being imposed upon them rather than something that has grown naturally.

Yes, I think that's true. I think it's essentially a substitute for "non-white" which is supposed to be less white-centric, but in the end it's not really. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say it either. Though lately I hear "black and brown" a lot, maybe its also meant to be a more elegant version of that? Or, there seems to be a lot of acronym creation lately, so maybe it just follows that trend.

It seems to be of somewhat limited use, as well, given that the histories and even current situations of all the groups included in PoC are rather different. That sort of lumping seems to obscure differences that may be significant.

I don’t like the term ‘poc’ either, and actually as someone pointed out we are all ‘poc’ - white is a colour as much as black / brown are. When I was younger you weren’t allowed to say brown - it was deemed racist, and you were to use ‘coloured’, but they you weren’t because that became racist ....I used to find it very confusing .... but now I see it’s being use a lot more by people who are brown. I would much prefer to be known as Chinese / Indian in the same way we use danish / Norwegian / German and any other nationality.

Yes to the above pp, the “woke” crowd SJWs are majority white but are being led by a handful of poc who are extremely vocal in their anti-racism, have enormous chips on their shoulders (and no doubt with good cause) and open up ko-fi accounts so that we can pay them for their “emotional labour” or sell books. One of the more recent ones wants us to believe we are all inherently racism or have hidden racism (as do they all actually) but she can cure us of our criminal behaviour and rehabilitate us for ££££ but only a professional like her can cure us. The point I do agree with her on is that she is anti-SJW / bullying and is very clear that shaming and bullying is NOT beneficial and will drive racists further into racism.

@Kicap I’d love to hear your take on all of this if you have time to go back to the beginning of where it all started. A few poc (sorry, I know you don’t like the term but I don’t know what else to say) have been bold enough to say it’s utter bollocks but quickly get quashed. Outside of the toxicity of Instagram I’d love a poc’s view.

How long has BIPOC been around? It seemed to come from nowhere.

POC--such a weird and coy circumlocution. I prefer 'Asian' or my actual nationality (I'm not a UK citizen).

It's complicated for me because my mother is (yup) white, but under the laws of my country of origin, I'm classified as my father's race--and my govt does mean race, and believes in it very fervently. So at 'home' I have a legal classification that comes with all kinds of ramifications (who you can marry, what property you can own, whether you can be prime minister...). As it happens this is the majority and favoured ethnicity where I come from. But at the same time I don't look right and was never considered brown enough!

So I'm utterly irritated that this US-centric it's-all-about-whiteness thing is taking over the world. I mean, sure, it is mostly about whiteness in a majority white society, but there's a whole other world (of prejudice) out there, and I don't want this silly label.

It does seem to have originated in the US. Ravelry is a US website and all of the Instagram stuff started with Karen Templar, then tusken - but the brits are equally keen and joyously taking down anyone here too. Purity spirals is the perfect term for it. The unsafe space videos are brilliant. They really give great insight into it all and have enabled me to see it for what it is and laugh at it. When did common sense get completely lost in place of taking offence at everything and deliberate and dogged misinterpretation of another person’s words

But in the UK I'm a member of an Indigenous population? I'm Welsh, Irish ( with a hint of Spanish from wrecked Armarda sailors) and Scottish, with a bit of Norman French (ie Viking) English amongst that mix.
But I am classed as "White, British" , and I don't think USA Raveley members would have any idea wtf I was on about if I tried to say "but wait I'm a member of a UK indigenous population"

But that's a common UK version/ description of BIPOC as used in the USA.

I'm a US. poster on Ravelry and I never heard about any of this. I only have seen it mentioned here on mumsnet. It is possible to use Ravelry without being aware of these situations at all. I assume that the SJW bullying is in the multiplicity of forums that are available there. Feel terrible about the designers/business owners that have been affected. It certainly isn't true that the entire community of Ravelry knitters is actively boycotting these designers.

Countess You ask how long BIPOC has been around - confess I have no answer to that, only read it a couple of weeks ago here. But it is meaningless in terms of the British Isles, as we don't have 'Black Indigenous' people here. I won't be using it.

I thought it was Black AND indigenous so would probably refer to Picts and Celts in the UK. I bet nobody has surveyed them to see how they feel about the term

I dislike the concept of indigenousness. It's just racial purity in another guise. Just because it's largely non-white people claiming racial purity doesnt make it OK.
Either multicultural societies and intermarriage are a positive thing or we should all have stayed in our countries of origin and got kudos for being racially pure. You can't have it both ways.

The whole BIPOC thing stands for Black & Indigenous People Of Colour, so I'd interpret that as black = non-white. In the UK setting black could be people of African heritage, Indian sub-continent heritage & others I'm sure. Not groups indigenous to these isles (and this is not saying 'go home'). So Indigenous people of colour in the UK? Who were our indigenous, our original, peoples? Ancient Britons, Picts, Celts - am no anthropologist or historian, just guessing here from history lessons aeons ago. Were they 'of colour'?

I agree 2Rebecca, I don't like the concept of indigenous being used either, not in a non-academic way. It's divisive & no good will come of all this splitting people into factions & blaming them for the sins of their forebears.

@DulciUke it made the news as ravelry have a policy banning anyone who supports Trump. But I also use ravelry constantly - but never the forums, as it’s only the patterns I look for. Instagram is where the bullying and ‘debates’ (I use that term loosely as I’m not sure being hit over the head with a frying pan counts as conversation) are. It’s been going on for months. I’m an observer rather than a participant as there’s no solution to be found, it’s not a solution they seek, just a campaign.

They don't ban people who support Trump, but they do ban pro Trump patterns, profile pictures and posts.

BAME is the acronym used the UK isn't it? Which makes much more sense than indigenous in a UK context. But I suppose it's another example of how US politics doesn't translate well to the UK .

Thanks lemonysnicketts. I never look at Instagram outside of family stuff. I knew about the Trump decision as it was right on the Ravelry homepage.

I've just read the full thread (3 sittings)... wow. Just wow.

I think this is the missing piece of the puzzle in terms of what's been going on in my head re trans issues and thought crime etc. Haven't had time watch the videos but will later. Knitting. Wow. Ok.

Thank you for all your contributions to this thread.