EFFORTPOST Knitting Drama Part Deux

You can view the previous post on knitting drama here: https://rdrama.net/post/252397

Did you really think Knitting Drama didn't extend into the social science journals?

>Because this is the top of the post I've had to watch Alex Jones beat his chest the entire time I wrote this effort post lol

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14759756.2022.2102725

There is a body of research that identifies the social benefits that exist from participating in knitting and crochet as a leisure pursuit in collaboration with others. In this article, we draw on the concept of knitting hierarchies to interrogate the concept of craft groups as being welcoming, inclusive spaces. Drawing on a survey conducted with 243 Australian women we explore the dynamics and hierarchies that exist by contrasting experiences of community and belonging with those of gossip, judgment, and exclusion.

The authors acknowledge the valuable input at the research design stage of the Women's Crafting study from Elizabeth Edmondson and Amy Walker from Federation University Australia. This work was supported by a Federation University Australia cross-school research grant.

!strayans taxes paid for this

Let's start with my most hated shitlib magazine Vox

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/25/18234950/knitting-racism-instagram-stories

Karen Templer's Fringe Association Co. is kind of like Goop for knitting. There are tips and how-tos for navigating knitting's trickier maneuvers. There are knit-alongs for chunky cowls and cute fingerless gloves. There's an online store that sells the Fringe bag, which has come to be known in some circles as the Birkin of knitting bags. And there's the blog where Templer puts her personal thoughts.

On January 7, she blogged excitedly about her upcoming trip to India. She wrote that 2019 would be her “year of color.” She said that as a child, India had fascinated her, and that when an Indian friend's parents offered to take her with them on a trip, it was “like being offered a seat on a flight to Mars.” She spoke of her trip as if it were the biggest hurdle anyone could jump: “If I can go to India, I can do anything — I'm pretty sure.”

Templer, it should be noted, is white.

As someone who is mixed-race Indian,

griftmaxxing queen let's hear her roar

to me, her post (though seemingly well-meaning) was like bingo for every conversation a white person has ever had with me

!nooticers why do 2nd gen immigrants pretend that every time someone takes an interest in their lives or background ITS ACTUALLY

about their “fascination” with my dad's home country;

it was just so colorful and complex and inspiring. It's not that they were wrong, per se,

They're not wrong BUT THEY ARE TONE DEAF

just that the tone felt like they thought India only existed to be all those things for them.

What does India exist for? Anytime I see them on the news, and by news I mean schizos I follow on twitter, it seems like India is only known for one thing....

The initial comments on Templer's blog post were supportive, but quickly, knitters and fans began to criticize her tone. “Karen, I'd ask you to re-read what you wrote

Honestly a very Karen thing to say

and think about how your words feed into a colonial/imperialist mindset toward India and other non-Western countries,” wrote commenter Alex.

“Multiple times you compare the idea of going to India to the idea of going to another planet — how do you think a person from India would feel to hear that?”

Here's what would happen if she phrased it differently

>I'm so happy I get to visit your country, this is almost as amazing as going to Mars

>WDYM ALMOST U BIGOT???

I hope you enjoyed my

Templer has since apologized for her post, writing, “It took women of color pointing this out for me to see it ... which is not their responsibility, and I am thankful to them for taking the time,” and that she'd be continuing to raise visibility of people of color (and specifically black/indigenous POC) knitters and their work. (Templer declined to comment for this piece.)

For people who actually read (not, not you !r-slurs) the link was included in the previous post but here it is for posterity's sake: https://fringeassociation.com/2019/01/12/words-matter/

But her post triggered a wave of conversations about racism and prejudice in the fiber arts world, which thus far shows no signs of slowing down.

Her post triggered a bunch of progressive white women who live in terror everyday of committing a heckin racism and so will do everything in their power to force inclusivity so they don't end up being ostracized like Karen Templar. This is what oversocialization looks like scrotes

How the conversation started. Odds are if you're in your 20s or 30s,

40s as well, amirite @InterGONEvention ?

you have at least one friend who's gotten really into knitting in the past few years. The ancient craft never went away,

Of course it hasn't, people knit world wide because not everyone lives in a bubble of first world problems

but relatively recently, aided by its high Instagrammability, a heightened appreciation of DIY, and everyone's desperate need to keep their hands busy in an anxiety-inducing world,

Describing the world as anxiety-inducing is a self-fulfilling prophecy

it became more within the purview of urbane people who know how to flex online.

Here it is, it's become a hobby for yuppies to brag about online.

I'm going to stop here because I hate VOX like no other but there's plenty more white guilt plastered all over that article.

https://thespinoff.co.nz/internet/10-02-2022/untangling-the-knotty-social-dynamics-of-online-knitting-communities

Untangling the knotty social dynamics of online knitting communities

But as tangled as their fingers are in the fibres of the real world, knitters, like most people, use social media. To understand some of the ways social media teaches us to behave, the knitting community – grounded in the physical world, but still online – is a way in. Specific aspects of knitting require attention: the controversies the community is reckoning with, to do with vaccines and allegations of racism, and the ways that individuals are invested in maintaining relationships after the fallout to these events.

and ???

When Renee Paku started learning to knit, she wasn't thinking about social media: she just needed something to keep her hands busy. She was a single, pregnant mother with a seven-month-old baby. She'd left a life in Australia and moved back to Aotearoa to be closer to her whānau.

This Maori woman is whiter than me lmao

Knitting captivated her. “It was the start of a beautiful thing

It is a very beautiful thing, and I think it's wonderful that mothers knit for their future children

and the end of the world as I knew it,” she says.

Uh oh, this might become melodramatic

When her family members started complaining that her Instagram had too many pictures of luscious knitted sweaters and zig-zagging hats and not enough of her children,

As her family should, her children are adorable and I'm sure her family is very proud of them

>this is the only non-family guy option when I searched for family

>Paku started Auahatia, her Instagram account and pattern and yarn business. She has nearly 1,600 followers, and uses her platform to make a space for te ao Māori on Instagram that she couldn't find when she started knitting. On Instagram, Paku wears bright pink lipstick, her moko kauae clear and dark on her chin, and posts videos explaining the connection between microaggressions and broader systems of racism.

>microagression

I hate identify politics so much, HOW COULD OCCUPY WALLST DO THIS TO US????

“There are some amazing people in our [knitting] community,” she tells me. But this is not universally true. “That space can get real racist real fast.”

I still can't get over how white she is. Thank goodness you can't be racist against white people.

While there are big-scale issues in the knitting community that Paku is referring to, it's useful to explain two of the most divisive recent moments in Aotearoa's knitting universe. The first of these involves Maree Buscke, a shareholder of Skeinz, one of New Zealand's only two wool mills that produce consumer-grade yarn (as opposed to, say, wool for carpets).

Weird, I thought New Zealand was known for wool, I'm surprised there's only two mills. Aren't there like 5 big brands for wool socks in New Zealand alone? Kiwis explain yourself

>In March 2020, the Skeinz company was accused of racism after a member of the private Skeinz Facebook group posted a picture of a golliwog they had knitted (an enduring issue in New Zealand).

wtf is a Golliwog

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/121694030/shock-over-demeaning-golliwog-sales-as-protest-marches-swell

>The golliwog is a black fictional character which first appeared in the 1895 children's book called The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg, written by British author Florence Kate Upton.

uhhhh

The Dutch were the real racists all along

https://tikatangata.org.nz/resources-and-support/frequently-asked-questions#what-is-wrong-with-golliwogs-and-blackface

Unrelated but this was in the article

Good to see NZ having their own BLM rallies almost entirely populated by overweight white women

But my personal favorite

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122286583/the-golliwog-in-the-room

(Left-right) Angela Ramsay, 56, and daughter Michelle Ramsay, 23, agree to disagree about golliwogs.

That caption is pure gold

Though the picture was deleted by moderators, it was promptly reposted by the individual, creating an enormous backlash of individuals telling Skeinz that their Facebook group was perpetuating racist images.

lmao Grandma reposting her racist caricature dolls

Buscke later appeared on an American podcast called Unsafe Space,

Here you go zoomers a 90 minute video essay:

saying that golliwogs were not racial stereotypes but a tradition from Turkey, and that “social justice bullies” had destroyed her Facebook community.

This was bullied because g*mergaters lost their war

The saga was documented on an anonymous Instagram account. The lack of apology has led many knitters to decide that Skeinz is a racist organisation; yarn dyers scrambled for another source of undyed wool. (Skeinz did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)

I wonder why they won't comment

excuse me but are you a racist company harboring racist people with their racist ideas

why won't anyone respond to my emails?

The second involves Libby Jonson (a friend of Buscke) and Alia Bland, two prominent New Zealand designers of knitwear and crochet. After it became clear that they were two of the three founders of Voices for Freedom, an organisation that opposes the government's Covid response, many knitters tried to distance themselves from their patterns. (Jonson, too, did not answer requests for comment.)

Holy shit the 2/3 of the NZ antivax are knitters. Okay well this is going in part 3 lmao it's a rabbit hole

These controversies have international precedent: overseas, digital knitting communities have become significant flashpoints, with groups divided over topics of politics, racism, and diversity – and those are just the ones that get reported outside of the knitting community.

JFC, Knitting made it into the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/29/how-politics-tested-ravelry-and-the-crafting-community

How Politics Tested Ravelry and the Crafting Community

The Facebook of knitting and crocheting was a rare online haven. Then came the Kittyhat, Deplorable Knitter, and more.

please fetch me this article, also this one: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/cast-off-how-knitters-turned-nasty/

What could be offensive about this? Taylor had apparently committed ‘violence against Bipoc' — black and indigenous people of colour — by telling them how to conduct their arguments about inclusion. He was ‘tone policing' people of colour and, as a white man, this was wrong.

These altercations take place online and grow in significance in part because digital disagreements are (at least semi) permanent; comments and arguments are cemented in place, somewhere down the feed. “In the digital world [tension] stays there,” says Philippa Smith, an associate professor of English and new media at AUT

Remarkably salient point from an associate professor

who has studied social interactions online. “In a conversation face to face, you might say something and that comment disappears. Online, other people can see and join in with those comments at any time.”

Boomers and Gen X learned that everything you post on the internet stays there forever, then failed to pass on that lesson to most of their progeny.

Knitters use social media because it is social – Instagram and Facebook are a way to connect with others and maintain friendships. “I've met some of my closest friends, my top-five humans, through commenting on Instagram posts,”

I really hate people who describe others as their top five or favorite "Humans" it's the most minor yet annoying virtue signal I've seen with white women.

This knitting identity is fortified by the encouragement and validation in digital spaces

I also hate how mayofoids harp on and on about support, encouragement and validation over and over again. I swear the validation / attention seeking portion of BPD is contagious. Well, better find something else funny in this article before my internalized misogyny takes over.

I think this woman also claims to be Maori

For some members of the community, calling out issues like racism, loudly and explicitly, is essential to maintain the integrity of those communities, regardless of whether it makes people feel uncomfortable.

For Renee Paku, who takes her responsibility as “the only loudmouth Māori on [knitting] Instagram” seriously, this often means photos posted on Instagram with comments about allyship and capitalism, as well as explanations of her latest intricate shawl or stylish sewn skirt. In one video, she stirs her coffee, wearing light-up cat ears that do not detract from the serious subject matter.

Reminder this woman is Maori

“Deep fricking breath,” she says, before explaining how a comment belittling the Māori language in a Facebook knitting group is a microaggression that signifies broader systems of racism. She tells her followers to be courageous in noticing and calling out racism in their lives. “By not stopping [these microaggressions] in real life, you give people the authority and the fricking cheekiness, to be honest, to be doing it online.”

Based Queen making it her lifes work to combat racists on the internet

Paku's willingness to call out racism when she sees it comes at a price. “I've made some enemies,” she tells me. “I've had people at markets refuse to have a stall next to me because I called them out on their cultural appropriation. I don't care, it's people like that that don't show the really beautiful side of the knitting community.”

Apparently IRL too

Laura Vincent, the knitter from Auckland, echoes this. She lists the political issues she thinks about when she knits: Who made the yarn? Is it affordable? Who models the pattern? Is it size inclusive?

Can she afford to support a small business, or will she choose to use mass-market or secondhand yarn?

Based small business enjoyer

What are the environmental effects of yarn made from sheep's wool, or plastic, or cotton?

>plastic

Did she mean acryllic?

But she doesn't let these questions paralyse her, or prevent her from knitting. “There is so much that is churning in the knitting community, and I don't know what the answer is,” Vincent says. “[But] it's important that everyone … tries to radically change what they're doing so that inclusivity is built into it.”

EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL

ALWAYS BE RADICAL

Laura Vincent, how flattering a photo she supplied to the j*rno

Whether they are processing frustration in a private group chat, explaining allyship on Instagram, starting an alternative yarn event, or writing stories to accompany a pattern, many members of the knitting community are trying to make the space more open to Māori, young people, queer people, and disabled people.

If I understand the NZ heierarchy of oppression it's Maori, youths, and

I guess we're not so different Kiwisisters

Every knitter I spoke to for this piece would agree with her.

oh lmao, this news site is the endless scrolling one. Here's the next article: https://thespinoff.co.nz/internet/09-02-2022/nz-has-a-trucker-convoy-because-protests-are-global-now

NZ has a trucker convoy, because protests are global now

It's like unearthing a time capsule of the crazy vaxxmaxx times

Hope you all enjoyed!