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A Letter to the Ravelry Community
Ravelry is an online knitting and crochet community, a tremendous resource of knowledge and expertise, and the go-to place for its millions of members all over the world for both selling and buying, online knitting, and crochet patterns. It probably won’t come as a surprise to you that politics, when they infect the site, list heavily to port.
But Ravelry has just put itself at the very top of my [expletive] list. I know several members here also belong to Ravelry, and I’d like your help in getting the word out (if you agree with me). Members can contact the site here. I’ve also sent an email to info – at – ravelry – dot – com, which is an address I’ve used in the past, although I can’t be sure it’s still live. Given my Ravelry user name (which has been the same for years), I’m not expecting a chummy response. Still, I have shelves full of knitting books, a huge stash of yarn, and lots of other things to do. I expect I’ll survive.
Published in GeneralDear Ravelry:
I have just read the following announcement on the home page of Ravelry:
“We are banning support of Donald Trump and his administration on Ravelry.
This includes support in the form of forum posts, projects, patterns, profiles, and all other content. Note that your project data will never be deleted. We will never delete your Ravelry project data for any reason and if a project needs to be removed from the site, we will make sure that you have access to your data. If you are permanently banned from Ravelry, you will still be able to access any patterns that you purchased. Also, we will make sure that you receive a copy of your data.”We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy.”
This is disgraceful.
Ravelry is perfectly within its rights to require that its members remove overtly political messages from their patterns, comments and projects. To say that NO political messages of any kind, in support of any candidate (Trump, Biden, Weld, Obama, Sanders, Clinton . . . ) are permitted or supported on the site. You could go further, and say that no overt support of any social or political agenda of any kind is permitted. You could say that no patterns, comments or projects projecting any sort of racist or bigoted, or divisive points of view are allowed on the site. And if Ravelry would like to criticize Donald Trump, the politician, as someone it does not care to support, it may do that too. And whether or not I agreed with your stance, I’d respect it.
But Ravelry has crossed the line. To state unambiguously that Donald Trump’s supporters are all white supremacists is a disgusting and libelous falsehood. That is the statement that Ravelry has no business making. My personal political opinions don’t and shouldn’t, matter to you. I don’t put them on Ravelry, and no-one else should either. (I’m not even an American Citizen so I can’t even vote.) But if this policy isn’t reversed, I’ll be cancelling my Ravelry membership. I don’t go to Ravelry for the politics, and I won’t be staying around for the insults.
I’m not going to support or participate in an organization that disrespects and calumniates tens of millions of people, a few of whom are my friends, and who I know perfectly well are not white supremacists, or any sort of bigots, in this way.
Your entirely inappropriate, disgusting, libelous, false statement, needs to be expunged from Ravelry’s site. Immediately if not sooner.
I’m looking forward to your response, which I hope will be that you have re-written your policy in a fair and non-partisan way that doesn’t egregiously insult a considerable proportion of your membership, good people who have done nothing to deserve it, who are not in the least racist, who don’t have a white supremacist bone in their bodies, and who, along with you, condemn bigotry in all its forms, but who nevertheless happen to support a politician you don’t approve of, for reasons you can’t be bothered to understand. You are the bigots here. You are the ones maligning millions of innocents, for the despicable actions of a few. You are the ones who should be ashamed. And yes, I’ll say it, because as a foreigner, perhaps I expect more from the citizens of this great country than they sometimes expect of themselves: You are unAmerican.
Please correct this egregious overreach, and do it swiftly. The personal opinions of your members are none of your business, and you should respect that. I only wish I didn’t know your own opinions now, or the contempt that you have for a large proportion of your membership, and the lengths to which you’re willing to go to make that contempt known publicly.
I hope you can summon the common sense and intestinal fortitude to right this appalling wrong.
You should be ashamed of yourselves.
RightWingKnitJob, TKGA member and Ravelry member (for now)
They did that?? Seriously? I was just on their site recently. No more. And I’m going there to tell them a thing or three. Disgusting!
Who runs this site?
https://www.ravelry.com/about
She, I’m not on the site that often. How/where do I write a response to them? A link for me and others would be very helpful!
I’m with you She. This is a big disappointment. Time to find and support ‘alternative’ online communities for needle arts and such.
You may have to be a member to contact them through the site, but it’s here: https://www.ravelry.com/contact.
I also sent to info@ravelry.com, which I’ve used before. It hasn’t come back yet, but I can’t be certain that it’s worked (I’ll note that in the post).
As usual, I slumbered through another trend. Please inform if the word “pride” has now been co-opted for a single-use purpose. The degree of “flattery”seems to have increased by an order of magnitude this June. And what is that color scheme on the right?
So essentially a bunch of young unknowns who hit on an idea and are now bent on politicizing it. Sounds like Silicon Valley.
The “contact” link worked. https://www.ravelry.com/contact. This is what I wrote:
I am extremely disappointed in your blatant political position about comments regarding Donald Trump. To say your position isn’t “anti-Conservative” is disingenuous. I would be fine with your banning all political statements–there are plenty of places to make statements elsewhere–but to single out the President of the United States–your behavior is disappointing and inappropriate. I will no longer come to Ravelry.–Susan Quinn
Not sure. My first guess, without going to look, is that there are now so many letters in the LGBTQWERTY etc. list that there aren’t enough colors in the rainbow so that each of them can lay claim to their own unique little stripe.
Way to go, @susanquinn!
They should change their name to “Progressive Knitwittery.”
FIFY.
That is frightening to read. Holy cow. Good response.
This accusation that Trump is a racist is a complete lie. The Democrats have really outdone themselves this time.
The Republican Party needs to get out ahead of this. Ignoring this is making it seem to people that there must be truth to it. The Republican Party needs to start a massive campaign right now refuting this accusation. Keep it simple–just refute this ridiculous claim. Make it loud and clear.
Yet another example of Robert Conquest’s 2nd Law of Politics – Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
Just resigned—thanks for the heads up, @She!
Have at it, @marcin, please. As an registered “alien” (a term I don’t mind, regardless what that ignoramus (or perhaps it should more properly be “ignorama” or “ignorazir” or “ignoramx” or something similar) AOC imagines, it means), I try not to get explicitly involved in politics. This isn’t about politics for me. It’s about hatemongering and insults directed at my friends. I’m really angry about this.
Good for you. I hope you told them why. IIRC, you write a pretty good letter yourself. Thanks.
:)
It’s the great mystery of our times. And it’s certainly not confined to the left.
Many have made the observation that as traditional religious faith falters, political faith has taken its place. Your soul needs saving and they feel compelled to call you out as a sinner. Only in their religion, there’s no mercy, no grace, no salvation or absolution.
And when you say goodbye their only reaction will be, “Don’t let the door hit you in backside on the way out.” The bottom line is that you don’t need them to enjoy what you do. The best response is to leave and take as many with you as you can.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
Sounds like it’s working. Now, I just need to sit back and contemplate what comes next . . .
Seems to me the statement they have made is defamatory. It goes beyond Ravelry members. They are accusing anyone who supports Trump of being a white supremacist, something that would likely terminate a person’s employment if believed.
What should be done is not to quit Ravelry. What should be done is to follow the example of Gibson Bakery – demand a retraction of, and a public apology for a libelous statement. And a lawsuit to follow if they do not comply. And this can be done by any Trump supporter, because they are the ones whose reputations are in danger if these statements go unchallenged.
For those of you who participate in rpg.net (role-playing games): I don’t know much about them, but Ravelry states that it modeled the new policy on that recently propounded there: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/new-ban-do-not-post-in-support-of-trump-or-his-administration.835849/
Preach it!
Bookworm is on this, too:
http://www.bookwormroom.com/2019/06/23/ravelry-social-network-silences-trump-supporters-white-supremacists/
For those of you who (still) belong to Ravelry, there’s a discussion here: https://www.ravelry.com/discuss/lovin-the-freebies/3529393/18601-18625#18619
Here is the last ( as of 7:45PM Eastern) comment:
If I had ever been there in a way that would matter, I would be most happy to have at them. (Have two left feet when it comes to dance, and two left arms when it comes to sewing and knitting.) Thank you for letting people here know what is going on.
This is the Brave New World we now live in. Turn on late night TV shows, and the jokes there all demonstrate that decent people, normal people should feel nothing but hate for Trump, name calling of Trump, letting the public understand that he is a fool, a Bozo, a satanic magician who will eat babies if left to his own devices.
However I think that this is back firing on them. Maybe people here can set up their own crafts group? Which might easily with some promotion on Twitter or Facebook get a few hundred people overnight.
My twitter feed is filled with Trump supporters and Trump followers. Let me know if any new groups for knitting come about, and I will put the word out among the 150 or so who follow me.
Make. Them. Own. It.
W.O.W.
I think what is dangerous is not only the decision that thousands of Trump supporters are white supremacists, but that any support for Trump or his administration is banned. That means if you celebrate, say low unemployment of minorities due to Trump policies, it must be silenced. What about Trump supporters who are minorities? Are they also ‘white’ supremacists? Can someone submit a pattern in red, white, and blue, or are only rainbow colors allowed?
I do wonder how many people this affects. Are we talking thousands or millions? And, since Ravelry is a world-wide organization, how this will affect others’ view of American so-called freedom of speech.