"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?'

Yes to those articles. This was the first one:
quillette.com/2019/02/17/a-witch-hunt-on-instagram

There is big money in the Yarn World now, odd though it may seem. I suspect a lot of this is aimed at thinning the market down #diplomatic

Having just looked at Kate's lovely website I can see some very special items will shortly be heading for the Truth household.
Having determined to stop funding charities, businesses and organisations that advocate (deliberately or unwittingly) practices that harm and sexualise children alongside reducing our consumption of irrelevant consumables, there are suddenly funds available for ethical and moral businesses. This looks like one.

There seems to be a grift element as well.

Someone made this comment on the quillette article.

"Because there is money involved, expect competition for eyes to be very fierce indeed. Notice how many of the quoted calls for reflection, “conversation,” etc above include a pitch to buy something from a more appropriate vendor. When the quest for the moral high ground is inextricably tied to the quest for dollars, expect moral theatrics to reach a fever pitch. The internet is full of people who are happy to pile on some poor sap for free, but add to that people who see such pile-ons as serving their economic interest and you have a recipe for this kind of internecine warfare. Even in something like knitting".

This makes me think about how knitting and sewing circles used to be associated with religion - held in the vicarage, started off with a prayer, knitting for the poor or sewing altar cloths or hassock covers, the whole enterprise imbued with a sense of piety and special virtue, and of course superiority to those slackers who couldn't be bothered to attend, and to the benighted heretics who weren't church-goers at all...

I wonder if the people engaging in this simply have too much time on their hands?

I’ve read some of the links, but I’m still not 100 per cent sure I understand what Kate Davies is meant to have done that got her banned from shops etc.

Is it genuinely just about not being willing to perform her political views on social media? That’s the entirety of what she did “wrong”?

I've read some of the articles and I'm still confused!
I'm not even sure I understand how knitting has become the racist environment described?

I'm totally confused by the entire thing, had no idea till today that this was going on. Kate Davies's crime, according to The Spectator, seems to be that she wouldn't join in the public shaming of people who others deemed to have infringed their code of ..what? Wokeness? White guilt? No idea. Anyone saying they didn't understand what she'd done wrong was told they were part if the problem. No explanation. Reminds me of people being tortured til they confess, just to get the torture to stop, but they have no idea what they are supposed to have done.

I’m part of a “secret” group on FB for women in my profession and see this kind of extreme virtue signalling quite a bit - around the “transwomen are women” mantra and around race.

I saw a white disabled woman bullied off the group simply for asking questions. The “white tears” argument was aimed at her - by other white women as well as women of colour.

I stay because I’m quite senior and there are a lot of women who don’t have the support network or mentorship I was fortunate to have. But it makes me self-censor. Funnily enough, sexist ageism against older women and women without children attracts very little ire ( usually only mine).

Reading some of the same stuff here, I get it, intellectually. I get it theoretically. Just as I, as a woman, feel I carry and have responsibility towards my feminist forebears and the women who went before me, I can see how people of colour might feel the same way about race and a responsibility to articulating the air of oppression they breathe.

We breathe the air of patriarchy too!

But this calling out is a very over the top and clumsy translation of theory into practice which takes no account of other people’s experience of historic or other oppression eg being gay or Jewish.

It’s top trumps of oppression.

Th issue is centuries of racism & really awful lived experience. I can’t imag what it must be like if you’re the mother of a black boy or young man, especially in the USA wondering if your son will survive an encounter with the police.

But - that isn’t fixed by the sort of punishment that is chronicled in those Quillette articles.

Yarndale issued ann inclusion statement a few weeks ago to my mystification. I guess this is why.

Yarndale were forced to open up extra slots at the last minute due to pressure from campaigners, with preference towards BAME/BIPOC exhibitors. Quite how they (illegally) ensured this or why those with the calibre to exhibit hadn’t applied before is a bit of a mystery.
I wonder if the person who has been instrumental in powering this furore got a stall in the end? One wouldn’t blame Yarndale or any show organiser for allowing her to exhibit just to avoid the hatred should she be turned down.

The upset over the quote from that woman about going to India is probably the maddest thing I've ever read. Unless the article missed huge chunks out?!?!?

Nope. She just said that visiting India was akin, for her, to visiting Mars, as she knew little of the reality and had never been. Now, there is a case for thinking that’s a little crass, but she did issue a sincere apology. That wasn’t good enough for some, however and it all erupted into a witch-hunt where if you asked questions you were expecting others to do the work for you, if you kept silent you were obviously supporting the Haterz. If you said you just wanted to knit you were kicked out of groups (of knitters), if you said you understood and supported you were castigated for trading on your privilege.
Names are actuall being taken down and businesses are being destroyed. Other businesses are doing rather well out of the virtue signalling and surprise, surprise, they are not from under-represented groups in the yarn world.

I'm an active Ravelry user and resent a totally neutral and inclusive hobby being turned into a race war / political grandstand. I resent being told that I'm privileged just because of the colour of my skin. I couldn't give a shit what colour anyone else is or what their gender preferences are. When I'm on Ravelry I'm looking at knitting not people! A good design is a good design regardless of who designed it. The Instagram stuff has totally got out of hand beyond even what has hapened on Ravelry. It is mind boggling.

I've found the sock guy's poem, it's in the 3rd of the articles, that was posted above

I’m a member of an online women’s group that’s gone completely down this rabbit hole. It used to be a place to discuss women’s issues but now it’s a place where white women / lesbians are the most privileged group on earth and must be constantly admonished for being human beings with their own lives and concerns.

A couple of incidents stand out. One woman was discussing her view of an advert that featured racism as a topic - she was absolutely destroyed and said as a white woman she didn’t get to have an opinion. She explained that half her family is non-white and was attacked for using the “I have black friends defence” - she explained that no, her father and therefore his family (so half her family) are non white, but that she didn’t have much to do with them and therefore knew very little of her roots. She was told that her father must be very ashamed of her - she explained that her father had sexually abused her so she had no contact. They continued to rip her to shreds, no apology for the assumptions about her.

Another time, the whole group was asked to do a readalong of a book about white privilege. One member who was having an awful time fleeing an abusive alcoholic partner said she wouldn’t have time to join in but would read it on her own time. They eviscerated her for being caught up in her own “trivial problems” and that WOC wish they had her problems. It was very ugly. And you can’t say anything, because then you’re using “angry black woman” stereotypes and tone policing.

The group had been lovely but the founder saw the abusive way some were behaving and shut it down (she was a WOC herself). The new group sprang up with this group at its core. A sole TW member of the group is centred at all times. Gender is a spectrum but race isn’t; TWAW but Dolezal is the devil, etc.

Members are expected to join groups where they pay monthly reparations to be called out by POC on their white privilege. I can see that groups like that started with good intentions, but now I see lots of enterprising people monetising white guilt as an income stream.

It reached peak insanity for me when one of this core group who mocked the problems of a DA victim expected the members of the group to contribute to a cr*d f*d for a black male musician she’s mates with so he could buy a MacBook.

I am seeing signs of it eating itself however - there’s on member who describes themselves as agender who was recently called a TERF on another group after complaining about ableism there.

It’s interesting to sit back and watch all this go on - sometimes I have to sit on my hands to prevent me from commenting on something utterly insane. It’s a good indicator of what’s coming, however.

There’s also a marked rise in very vocal men. Some of the most vicious condemnation has come from them. They do seem to be revelling in a previously untapped female space to throw their weight around in
Pronouns are also becoming a massive deal in groups, much to the confusion of many of the members. Mind you, question the validity of pronouns or even ask what it all means and you’re out of that group before you can say SSK. Sometimes your post will be left up for the others to take the almighty piss out of though, which is nice.

Sockmatician did not read the room before he asked for Diversknitty to become a little more general and kinder. I thought at the time he was being a bit patronising and high handed but hey, it was his word in the first place.
He also did not attack anyone at a show. He was attacked despite asking for a bit of space due to recent mental health issues and continued to be attacked. He was not bundled off ranting by organisers, he was taken to a safer space by organisers and in fact, went on to teach a class later, I believe, despite being shaken up.

This sounds insane and no way enjoyable for anyone involved. This call out culture is sucking the joy out of life.

The utterly joyless puritanical morons.

That poor, poor man

I don’t want to take the piss out of knitters but thought it was just some kind of innocent pastime gradually falling out of fashion where the youth fail to replace the older generation.

No knitting is huge. Lots of young people do it and I don't want to generalise but it attracts lots of sensitive people who are struggling with their mental health and who turn to it as a therapeutic tool. That's oversimplifying things because all sorts of people love knitting for good reason, but that is a proportion of the younger knitting community. I knit because it's therapeutic although I can only really call myself youngish these days, alas!

I have been following this debate for some months and it has horrified me. The aggression involved has been awful. Initially I thought, knitting can't be racist, what is going on? I've been to all sorts of craft groups with a range of people there and never considered BAME people didn't feel welcome given black people were participating. I do now think there is a point to be made though that it is a very white world when it comes to knitting as a commercial activity, and fair enough the community could do with looking at diversity and representation. Most communities could. Some black people are expressing that they feel unwelcome at knitting groups because they're the only ones there and that there are no black faces in advertising knitted products/patterns. That should be listened to.

But the whole debate got out of control so quickly. I was seeing women on IG saying people weren't following them and being racist as a result - one account had 30k followers! That's not as big as some accounts, granted, but you're doing pretty well as a knitting pattern designer if you have that level of support. And another account was simply photos of knitting; I'm not sure how racism could be involved given you couldn't see her skin tone or name. There were other accounts which, quite frankly, just had poor photographs and poor quality products. I'm not following them because of racism, I'm just picky about following good quality work.

I have unfollowed various accounts and a big FB knitting group now because this debate was so toxic and upsetting. Oh and The war started & raged on. Sockmatation has MH problems, was hospitalised, messages from his husband held no sway - I have no way of knowing this is true so am hesitant to write it but I read in a public post that this individual made a suicide attempt, he was so upset about being targeted. If that's true it's dreadful.

Agree, Floomph, the community as a whole needs to keep an eye on who is included and who might be being left out.
I just doubt the movers and shakers behind this (hard to pin down as they rely on short-lived IG stories, misrepresentation and half truths) really have that as their motive.

I resent being told that I'm privileged just because of the colour of my skin.

See, I don’t - I am privileged because of the colour of my skin, despite disability and various other factors.

And I absolutely agree that in many spheres POC arent afforded the same opportunities as white people and this needs to be addressed

When it comes to Ravelry, you search for patterns that meet your criteria - you’ll buy the one that best suits your needs or is your favourite etc. In that regard it’s very equal opportunities and POC don’t need any “positive discrimination”.

I’m sure there’s an argument to be made that POC of colour are less likely to get into the industry in the first place and I would support initiatives to change that - but we need to be able to apply critical thought here.

This is what happened at the end of the 80s/beginning of the 90s when it then all imploded and feminism became more muted for a couple of decades. I remember having interminable arguments about whether white lesbians or black heterosexual women were more oppressed in one organisation I was involved in. It was ridiculous and over-simplistic. Glad I don't have to be involved in any of this now!