"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 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!

See this makes me a little uncomfortable. It's the same in the trans debate with people potentially getting tired of LGB people talking about the issues they're facing and just not wanting to listen anymore because the trans debate has left people feeling they've had enough of whinging.

If you step away from all the aggression and the stupid arguments that are raging, I think there is a debate to be had about racism even in the knitting community. I don't like all this self-flagellation about white privilege and people racing to put themselves down (rather than lifting others up) but there are voices in the BAME communities asking for more inclusion and saying race does come into knitting. It is something of a luxury having a blindness about that being an issue because it doesn't affect you. It is never a bad thing to stop and consider that and look at how we can be more inclusive in non-patronising ways (i.e championing the actual talent in the BAME community rather than any old designer simply because they're from an ethnic minority). But there is a wide, gaping chasm between that and all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that is happening right now with people behaving so badly.

I don’t want the Yarn World to be polarised by the colour of our skin or our willingness to use pronouns. I don’t want to see businesses destroyed for no reason when they have been there for years demonstrating not one iota of exclusion to any section of society.

But if non white people feel excluded from it, then it does need to be addressed - the deliberate misrepresentation and destruction of businesses is the problem here. A woman saying that a trip to India might as well be a trip to Mars due to anxiety about travelling is not akin to likening India to Mars generally. It’s an unnecessary pile on.

Oh for crying out loud, saying a new, unfamiliar place is like another planet is a common figure of speech. What a precious crock of shit this bunch are.

I think it comes down to people holding the wrong people accountable. Yes, there is probably something we can all do to make life more inclusive but someone running their own small business is not responsible for the lack of diversity in that field. It's such a crazy notion.

Of course, feminists are blamed for the deaths (at the hands of men) of trans women every day.

I wonder where it will end. There are some young people leaving a very dubious digital footprint nowadays. I'm glad I don't have all the stupid things I said or did in my youth on record for someone to trawl through and use to bring me down.

Good grief I don't think I can quite believe what I am reading.
It's madness.
Sorry, that's all the response I can summon up at the moment.

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

I wonder if they're people at all...

What was deletable?
Obviously hit a nerve with someone....

Bloody Hell! Insta was always so woke - glad I’m not on it any more

Great to see this being discussed here.

I knit but stay well away from knitters’ networks because of how insane they’ve become.

It’s so bizarre and feels (to me) very US centric and steeped in US views about race, which is a bit ironic when it’s meant to be about not centring the white western perspective.

Also Kate Davies is fab. I own several of her books. She wrote a great blog a while back on ‘mindless’ relaxing crafting and patronising attitudes towards traditionally female hobbies.

Yet again it brings Evergreen College to mind. Grievance studies have led to this.

Mike Naynas has a 3 part short doco about this on YouTube.

It seems I fell foul of rules on referring to trans women. Just want to clarify that as on a thread that also discusses racism I wanted to clarify I was not deleted on those grounds in any way .
Many thanks to MNHQ for their swift response to my enquiry.

I went to a now extremely woke London uni in the mid-90s and one of the people who did some of my classes alongside her main degree, anthropology, told us about how obnoxious and angry some of the anthropology students were. I suppose it’s what would now be called woke and oppression olympics-that’s what they were doing-being abusive to other students in the class who they saw as more privileged (although such a concept hadn’t been vocalised then). The girl I knew, she was mixed race and had been told not to talk to white people, stuff like that.

It seems a lot of this trouble is being stirred by one person. Here she is complaining about something else.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/01/stitch-up-online-sewing-community-at-war-over-cultural-appropriation

Another interesting link:

whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2019/06/09/the-sewing-and-knitting-communities-go-woke-and-toxic/

If there’s any community more toxically woke than the Young Adult Fiction (YAF) community, it’s the online sewing community. Both of these groups of professionals and hobbyists have lapsed largely into Outrage Mode, and if you say something the slightest bit ideologically impure, you’re instantly demonized. (There are many exceptions, of course, but, afraid of being called racists, they tend to remain silent.)

Apologies to the Outraged and clarifications don’t work—they never do—so the best strategy if you transgress is to either remain silent or counterattack. For these groups, you should never apologize unless you are truly sorry, not simply to un-demonize yourself.

I was just about to post that Guardian article. Kim is clearly the Matthew Hopkins of knitting. Also, I note that the fat-positivity mob is another delightful aspect of the knitting world.

The body positivity community has a lot of aggression and science denial in it, too, yes. Wholeheartedly agree.

It is exactly the same in the world of custom fabrics. PayPal links are regularly posted to donate money to POC who have been offended or hurt by the opinions of ‘yt’ women. Businesses are being ‘cancelled’ for not getting skin tones correct when printing children’s Disney-inspired cotton lycra. There is outrage galore at any differing opinion. It’s all a bit scary!

I think a lot of people have realised that outrage can be converted into power and money. Something I’ve consistently noted across these various victim groups is how quick they are to suggest that people should give money to them to atone for thoughtcrimes, and how there is often a patreon or Paypal account set up to receive money from gullible fools and shamed penitents.

Probably a silly question, but is this happening in the UK or just the US?
Did the incident described where that poor bloke got screamed at actually happen at a knitting show in this country?

Yes, it’s a U.K. show, it took place in Birmingham.

The Sockmatician incident happened at a knitting show near Birmingham. I took a class with Sockmatician earlier this year, before all this kicked off. He’s a really lovely man, enthusiastic and talented . Since this happened, I’ve bought stuff from him, his sister is on Instagram as @sockmasister and she’s running his shop. I’ve also bought stuff from Kate Davies. I’m furious with how other well known designers were so quick to release posts condemning Sockmatician.

I bet the outraged of the knitting world will also be the kind falling over themselves to talk about the importance mental health and destigmatising it, particularly on awareness days, whilst at the same time subjecting their victims to mental torture and making out the breakdown claims are a sham.

Interestingly the latest person to fall foul of the woke knitting community is the wife of the Scottish knitting designer who was so judging of Kate Davies. Apparently she misappropriated a person of colours identity in a freelance magazine article and didn’t get it proofread before it was published and now the woke people are going after her for the damage she has done to the bipoc community. It seems the witch-hunt has turned on the witch hunters.

I've only skimmed through pp2&3 here (most unusually been out on a Saturday night) but I have learned so much & actually quite embarrassed to realise I had had no idea of what's been going on in these worlds.

They will surely eat themselves one fine day. How can so much anger & self-righteousness exist in these people without exploding?