Here are there I’m seeing surprise expressed at the white women players in storming the capitol.

I want to talk about that because I’m not surprised.

I’m not surprised because as a fiber artist I’ve seen these women for DECADES.

Thread.
These are the women who were tone policing knitters of color on newsgroups and mailing lists in the 1990s.

These are the women who don’t see color and just came here to do their craft thing and why does everything have to be about politics?
These are the women who were doxxing and swatting other crocheters in a group I moderated (and shut down) in 2005 on livejournal.

These are the women who, along with their hovering spouses, have open carried in my handspinning classroom.
These are the women who made lists of anti-trump fiber arts teachers and circulated those for harassment.

These are the women who post reviews on Amazon saying “she’s a racist who banned me because I’m white.”
These are the women who hate it when someone says “fuck.”

These are the WHITE WOMEN who say “stop the hate! This is supposed to be about the knitting.” Or spinning or weaving or whatever.
These are the women who say “tell me about the village where you grew up” and are angry and affronted when I tell them it’s a small city bigger than the county seat in Ohio where I was supposed to tiptoe around their racist beliefs.
These are the white women who I worked hard to reject from my audience while many of my colleagues told me I needed to be quiet and not confront them and that it would cost me (and, okay, sure, it probably did — it just didn’t cost me my soul)
These are the white women who turn to the lone Black woman in my class o spinning wool yarn and say “I would have thought you people would be more interested in cotton.”

These are the women I worry about when they follow me into a bathroom at a hotel or fairground.
These are the women who work so hard and so paso e aggressively to keep the fiber crafting scene white and privileged. They are often quite well off financially. That’s why they often think they are my boss because they spent $22.95 on a product that will pay me $0.75 royalties
These white women are everywhere in our midst in the fiber arts scene, asking me, like I say, about where I grew up in Peru but shocked when I speak Spanish with hospitality staff at the nice hotels that often house our fiber events.
Stop turning a blind eye. Stop being manipulated by these often passive aggressive pushers of fake nice in the name of white supremacy.

Stop thinking you can be apolitical in fiber arts or “white women’s hobbies.”

You can’t. “Not being political” IS political.

/end
Actually one more thing

I still see colleagues saying it’s important to maintain the appearance of neutrality.

I want you to know: when that’s your priority, it tells me you actually picked a side, and which one, and it’s not the one I picked.
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