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Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Knitting Wars
Greetings fellow Ricochetti knitters (you know who you are). I just got fired from KnitCamp!
It’s a knitting community I joined only about a week ago, at the enthusiastic suggestion of my sister (former Lefty, now not-so-much) who really enjoyed it because the woman who ran it hadn’t gone woke and/or wasn’t bullying her customers about such matters. When I checked her website myself, I found that she did have an “all are welcome here because diversity” statement, but it was quite lovely, and not at all out of bounds.
My sister had found the site, and KnitCamp to be free of the “smell-me” politics that infect so much of the online knitting presence these days. It’s a fee-based membership, and the members support each other, and the lady who runs it (Marie Greene, an apparently lovely woman with a serious “Doris Day” vibe), creates and sells beautiful, well-fitting patterns, and works hard at this. One of the features of Knit Camp is the “knit-a-longs,” a phrase that will be familiar to knitters, where a group selects or is presented with a particular pattern, people sign up to knit it, and with regular (in this case, virtual) meetings, support, and encouragement, people find out that they can do much more than they thought they could do alone. Who knew?
So, I plunked down my $125 for a year’s membership, got the first free pattern for the Summer Knit-A-Long, and purchased the yarn to knit it ($62). And I was all set.
And then, yesterday, for the first time, politics in the Facebook group. Orders from HQ: Donate to the SPLC. We are all guilty. Check your privilege. Submit. Confess.
I wrote an (I thought) rather mild objection, which I eventually discovered through nefarious means (because, fired) that went as follows:
Sorry I signed up for Knit Camp now. I did especially to avoid this sort of partisan bullying. Lest you think I don’t believe black lives matter as much as white lives, I’d caution you that none of you knows anything about me, so you should not jump to conclusions. I was hoping that this site, and this community would offer a respite from the knitting wars. But it seems I was wrong. Were I a member of George Floyd’s family right now, I’d be asking for peace, and for people to stop rioting and destroying lives and businesses (many of which are owned by members of the black community whose lives don’t seem to matter much, at least to the rioters). To their eternal credit, that’s what George Floyd’s family is already doing. We should follow suit.
Want to make a difference? Go out and talk to people in your community and find out what you can do to help. Invest your money in your own communities, rather than sending it off to a bunch of national groups with no interest in your neighbors, and with a political and social agenda that may be nothing like yours. And stand up to the bullies telling you what you must think, how you must act, and what you must do. I’m willing to bet that everyone who’s reading this is already a kind, decent, caring human being (after all, we’re knitters, right), who doesn’t need orders from headquarters to know the right thing to do. So just go out and do it.
Well, apparently this was disturbing to some (although not all, b/c I did get some high fives from others in the “community.”)
So I subsequently got an email from Marie Greene as follows:
I understand that these are difficult times and that differing opinions often clash when important issues are at hand. Based on your Facebook comment about regretting Knit Camp, I feel it’s only right to offer you the option of a refund if you’d like to cancel your membership. I know you’ve only recently joined and wouldn’t want your annual membership to be a waste if you don’t feel it’s the right community for you. I don’t typically offer refunds, but I think community is really important and I don’t want you to feel like you’ve wasted your resources on a community you don’t want to be part of.
Either way, I wish you well.
Thank you,
Heh. I may have been born at night. But it wasn’t last night. I ain’t jumping. You’re going to have to push me. So I responded:
Hi, Marie. Thanks for your kind offer. I think I’ll stick around. I’ve already ordered the yarn for the KAL sweater, and assuming that KnitCamp stays apolitical, I don’t have to go look at your other sites, and what you do and say on them is up to you. (I believe I first ran across your “Enough is Enough” post in the “Student Lounge” which says it’s a private group.)
If you think you can keep the politics out of KnitCamp, then good for you! I hope so. I’m less optimistic today than I was a week or two ago, and Knit Camp was promoted to me by one of its members as “there are no politics,” but we’ll see. Financially, with the discount, it’s not the end of the world if I bail at some point. I have absolutely no objection to being around or spending time with people who disagree with me politically, but I am tired of people virtue-signalling that they’ve suddenly gone “woke” and have all the answers, and that the rest of us are a bunch of clodhoppers who just don’t get it. I think your previous statement on your website about inclusivity covers the subject perfectly.
My heroine in this matter is the YarnHarlot. She and I could not be more different in our political leanings, and she writes about what she’s doing (PWA, Doctors without Borders) all the time. It’s a personal thing for her, and although she invites people to contribute to causes she supports (and I have, to both of them), there’s no pressure and no shaming if you don’t. And although she makes her own political and social persuasions and commitments known as she writes, again, there’s no pressure and no implication that the rest of us don’t get it or that there is something wrong with us. She tells us what she’s actually doing to make a difference, sets an example, and doesn’t nag us about what we ought to do ourselves. I admire her greatly.
Your patterns are lovely. Your site is lovely. KnitCamp appears to be lovely. I don’t expect to participate much by video because my internet connection (satellite) isn’t very good, but we’ll see.
So thanks again. But, no.
And, this morning, I got the email I expected:
Your refund has already been processed. I wish you well.
My final answer:
I cannot say I am surprised. Once again, disappointed, but not surprised. My experience of the newly woke is that they are some of the most intolerant people on earth.
Know that, at the suggestion of David Dorn’s family (he’s the retired St. Louis police officer killed by a howling mob a couple of days ago while his shooting, and his death agonies were jubilantly celebrated and jeered at via live stream on the Internet), I will be donating my “refund” to Backstoppers, an organization which supports the families of fallen heroes.
I do this because, you see, David Dorn’s life matters to me.
Don’t bother to reply.
I’ve already made my donation. And I asked them to send the acknowledgment to Marie Greene.
Commitments matter. Don’t run. Don’t hide. Don’t back down.
I have my hands completely full in my real life right now, which is the only reason I’m restricting this to the member feed. But I wanted you to see how very little it takes to be jettisoned as the “wrong sort of people” by the newly-woke.
I don’t want to start a flame war. I don’t want to destroy this woman’s life and career. I can’t help thinking she’s already been “got at” by those who’ve threatened her with annihilation if she doesn’t give in. It’s not like that hasn’t happened before.
So I’m not cross-posting this to my new blogsite.
Yet.
Crimenutely. And for Heaven’s Sake. Can we just get real?
Published in General
It seems like you get a handful of leftists together and they believe they should take over whatever organization they are in. Just like knitting, there is nothing inherently right-wing or left-wing about science fiction. There are successful authors on all points in the political spectrum. But go to a science fiction convention (depending on the city) and you will get the impression from many people that if you aren’t on the left, you really aren’t part of the club. It doesn’t matter if an author’s stories have nothing to do with politics, if it is discovered that they hold any conservative views in their private life, some of these little fascists will call for an author to be disinvited to a convention. The people who consider themselves to be the most tolerant are intolerant of any disagreement whatsoever.
You have touched on a fascinating point. The lefties all want to take the positions of power, run the conventions, and write the by-laws. This is what has happened in most of the denominations. The conservatives are only too glad to hand over the responsibilities until they wake up and realize that something has changed and it is not good. This seems to be deeply ingrained in us as people.
O’Sullivan’s first law.
That said, isn’t this particular knitting organization founded and operated by one woman?
Hmm, checking out the Olive Knits web site in the Wayback Machine…
It appears that the Manifesto is a very, very recent addition.
True. She (and She) has a right to do as she wants, but in the vein of those who used to say, “shut up and sing” to celebrities, we feel like calling out “Shut up and knit”.
Yes, the very great majority of them are. These are small businesses, of the mom and pop variety, usually run from people’s homes and home offices, or perhaps with a small bricks and mortar LYS (local yarn shop) attached. Usually owned by one, or a very few, people. That’s why it’s so easy to ruin them if they don’t toe the party line when the enforcers show up. Almost all of them are very dependent on Internet traffic and online business, and they can go from a thriving little concern today to utter ruin tomorrow, just based on a few Tweets. The level of venom and vitriol is stunning.
The best exposition of the knitting mess is probably by Katherine Jebsen Moore, on Quillette. There are several posts, but the first one is enough, in and of itself, if you don’t have the patience to read all of them: This isn’t homework by any means, but anyone who’s interested may want to take a look. I’ve long held that this story is about more than a bunch of elastic-waisted-pants-wearing grannies dithering about knitting. I always thought the very fact that the aforementioned elastic-waisted-pants-wearing grannies had suddenly been galvanized into wokeness was some sort of canary in the coal mine. I don’t think I’m wrong.
A Witch Hunt On Instagram
Instagram’s Diversity Wars Revisited
Knitting’s Infinity War, Part III: Showdown at Yarningham (this was when the intersectionality police showed up, and the previously untouchable gay knitters (from many of whom I’ve bought patterns and taken classes; they’re lovely guys), suddenly found out they didn’t have primacy anymore, and it was all about the BIPOC.)
These grievance mongers are, in the immortal words of Flanders and Swann, “stark, staring, bonkers.”
I just read the first line of the link and LOLed as Henry Racette might say. “Knitting is so white.”
Better to crochet in the fashion of football player Roosevelt (Rosie) Grier. Of course maybe he was just acting white. My brother-in law was a student manager for the Penn State team when Rosie was in his college hey-day. Rosie is a nice guy, but didn’t leave a lot of room in the bus seat when the team had to travel. My brother- in- law, not small himself, found this out through personal experience.
Rosie Greer was one of my heroes when I was a kid. He did needlepoint too.
Format errors or not, it is a great, and, much needed, response to the YWCA. Thanks for sharing.
Perhaps. But I think not. I believe folks such as yourself are showing others the way and are opening doors for others to get the courage to walk through. I think your post should be on the Main Page, even Post of the Week. We all need to stand up and talk back. Your post reminded me of this:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”― Edmund Burke
Thank you for doing something for all of us.
@She You are an exceptional individual. I salute your principled approach to conflict management. I just wish it was respected by the people who believe in tolerance and social justice.
Except, I’ve come to realize that “social justice” actually means “just us” as in “just our opinion counts, and you have no right to express yours.”
Sad times.
Welcome to Ricochet, @anthonydewitt! And, thank you.
The phrase “you have no right to express your opinion” doesn’t resonate with me. I expect that’s because of my Dad, God bless him.
You might find one of my previous posts on the subject of the “knitting wars” amusing. It’s here: http://ricochet.com/597143/archives/im-barefoot-and-hopping-mad/
Cheers.