![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneToday the front page of Ravelry, the social networking site for knitting/crochet/fiber art, hit me with this headline and blurb:
Racism and inclusion in the yarn community, posted by [site founder-owner] casey:
Now, I've noticed a bias, and certainly a demographic inequality in the yarn community, but I was amazed to see the issue get attention on the front page; the parts of the community I see often react to issues being raised in 'colorblind' (ie clueless + tone policing) mode... so at the link:
casey posted Racism and inclusion in the yarn community (560 posts, 340 voices, 23968 readers, started 2 days ago):
I don't have an Instagram account and wasn't going to sign up for something owned by Facebook in order to read the discussion, so the chronology he posted contained 3 links whose content I could read and 9 locked IG posts which will remain a mystery, but here's my reconstruction:
After those three links I returned to read through the Ravelry discussion linked above. Because the owner is taking the time to personally screen each submitted post, there's no hate speech or intense arguments, and there are plenty of suggestions and some resources (mostly POC designers/businesses). But I still noticed a rather upsetting (yet wholly unsurprising) trend in the post reactions:
On Ravelry's forums each post has a series of reaction buttons: educational, interesting, funny, agree, disagree, and love. So a comment posting a list of POC designers, for example, got a ratio of about 10 love: 3 educational. A comment that simply offers the definition of BIPOC ("black, indigenous, and people of color") got a ratio of about 16 educational: 9 love : 3 interesting : 2 agree.
The pattern I noticed was that universally positive posts that offer suggestions without the slightest shadow of naming or blamingwhiteness anybody get ratios like 28 agree: 2 disagree or 17 agree: 1 disagree... but when someone says "Once you have the opportunity to really see the impact of your unconscious racism, the failure to act differently IS a moral failing", suddenly they get ~ 23 disagree: 19 agree.
Somebody was [~300 somebodies were] feeling a little fragile about the tone of this... discussion sparked by a small tsunami of white fragility... .
Racism and inclusion in the yarn community, posted by [site founder-owner] casey:
We've started a discussion thread about racism and inclusion on Ravelry and in the yarn community as a whole.
This much-needed conversation began last week within the Instagram knitting community and if you haven't seen that, you will find some links + and background in the introductory post.
The forum thread is here: https://www.ravelry.com/discuss/needlework-on-the-net/3876423
Anyone can reply and posts will be held until they are approved.
Now, I've noticed a bias, and certainly a demographic inequality in the yarn community, but I was amazed to see the issue get attention on the front page; the parts of the community I see often react to issues being raised in 'colorblind' (ie clueless + tone policing) mode... so at the link:
casey posted Racism and inclusion in the yarn community (560 posts, 340 voices, 23968 readers, started 2 days ago):
We want to provide a space to raise awareness about how racism affects our community and give people a chance to help one another by sharing resources and thoughts. [...] I’m going to start by very briefly recounting the start of this conversation and after that I leave things open for anything that you’d like to share. [...]
I don't have an Instagram account and wasn't going to sign up for something owned by Facebook in order to read the discussion, so the chronology he posted contained 3 links whose content I could read and 9 locked IG posts which will remain a mystery, but here's my reconstruction:
- A knitting world professional wrote a blog post titled 2019: My year of color which cluelessly referred to India in an exoticizing and rather fetishizing manner, comparing it to Mars and accidentally invoking colonialism. In the comments, 2 POC commented to politely call this out, and a tidal wave of hurt white feelings appeared to defend the white lady and scold the POC for being mean. OP also responded defensively at first, but then apologized and added the apology note you can now read at the top of the post.
- Presumably before her change of heart, which was brought about on Instagram, at least 2 of the 9 locked IG posts discussed the problems with the post as well as Su.krita's lone public IG post here.
- OP posted a follow up post titled Words Matter in which she apologizes in more detail and then explains to her defenders what was wrong and why it's a problem. It's nice to see her address them directly, take responsibility for explaining what was wrong with her original post to them, and charge them with educating themselves too. However, if you scan down through the comments on the second post, it doesn't take long to find the first "I don't think it was bad and people are too easily offended".
After those three links I returned to read through the Ravelry discussion linked above. Because the owner is taking the time to personally screen each submitted post, there's no hate speech or intense arguments, and there are plenty of suggestions and some resources (mostly POC designers/businesses). But I still noticed a rather upsetting (yet wholly unsurprising) trend in the post reactions:
On Ravelry's forums each post has a series of reaction buttons: educational, interesting, funny, agree, disagree, and love. So a comment posting a list of POC designers, for example, got a ratio of about 10 love: 3 educational. A comment that simply offers the definition of BIPOC ("black, indigenous, and people of color") got a ratio of about 16 educational: 9 love : 3 interesting : 2 agree.
The pattern I noticed was that universally positive posts that offer suggestions without the slightest shadow of naming or blaming
Somebody was [~300 somebodies were] feeling a little fragile about the tone of this... discussion sparked by a small tsunami of white fragility... .
