Recently Ravelry put their foot down about members using their platform to spread hate speech and support white supremacy, in the form of Donald Trump and his administration. From now on nobody is allowed to express their support of DJT or white supremacy. As their New Policy statement says: “We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow suppport for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy.”
It came as a surprise to me, since I am not a member of many forums or groups on Ravelry so I wasn’t aware of what was going on. I also don’t know the owners of Ravelry and their political beliefs. I can only imagine what it must have taken for said owners to have taken this dramatic a step. I don’t think I really want to know what people are capable of expressing towards others, even on a knitting site!
For the record, I totally back Ravelry in their decision. They have the right to decide what does and does not go on their site, and I agree with their position; support of Trump infers support of racism and white supremacy. Perhaps that seems extreme, but it’s not difficult to find evidence of his views by looking at his policies and reviewing some of his statements. I don’t have to look further than his policy of separating children from their parents and keeping them incarcerated at the Mexican border in squalid conditions. That’s enough for me. There is absolutely no excuse for what is clearly a human rights violation. Of course, I also find him a despicable human being for a myriad of other reasons, which I won’t go into here.
That’s all I’m going to say about that aspect of the change in policy.
I recently watched a video entitled “Why I’ve left Ravelry-not what you think!” By “It’s Crochet O’Clock”. I was sucked in by the title of course, and very curious. It was interesting because the host, Stephanie, never expressed her own political views, except to emphasize her family’s long history of serving in the military to illustrate her support of individual freedom, and she made sure to say that she supported Ravelry’s owners’ right to ban anything they like, it’s their site.
Her stated reason for quitting was the idea that Ravelry is okay with putting resources (money) towards weeding out anybody who offends their new policy, yet they have done little to stop unscrupulous people from swiping patterns and selling them as their own. According to her she has tried “hundreds” of times to get them to pay attention to this issue with no reaction. If this is true, it’s something that needs to be addressed and I’d be curious as to how Ravelry would defend itself. If it’s happening as often as Stephanie says, perhaps it’s impossible to keep track and prove that such-and-such a pattern was really somebody else’s, and is it really up to them to do that? I don’t know, but I can imagine that they would be in lawsuits forever.
I can’t help wondering whether Stephanie was using the pattern copyright problem as an excuse to leave without having to state whether she really agrees or not with their anti-Trump/anti-white-supremacy policy. Anyway, it’s all very interesting.
I know this is summer and I should really be posting about flowers and gardening, but it seemed to be important to mention the Ravelry crisis (when Ravelry makes it onto Stephen Colbert you know something’s up! -Click the following link to see that gem: https://youtu.be/7pZNrX1PyNo) so flowers might have to wait a little longer. Get outside and take advantage of the weather while you can!
*I recently saw that word used on an episode of The Drunk Knitter, I don’t think she coined it herself, but I like it! In fact she’s selling tee-shirts with a logo on it that includes that word. Check that out here:
https://youtu.be/DyRlwYRCHcc
I love to hear from you!