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This week, Ravelry, the online yarn community most of us yarnivores use to connect, announced that they would have a zero-tolerance policy toward any kind of white supremacy and hate-speech. While many have been in support of the move, it has caused a lot of people to delete their accounts.

On Sunday 23rd July 2019, Ravelry announced that they would be “banning support of Donald Trump and his administration“

If you fly the flag for the current POTUS, I can see why you’d be a little miffed if you suddenly couldn’t yell your appreciation for the man who’s promised to make America great again if you’ve dedicated yourself to just that cause. But why does politics even matter when it comes to yarn-craft?

Turns out people are pretty passionate when they can’t speak out for or against an opinion.

Ravelry has always been inclusive and open to all since its founding in 2007, and the only way to achieve this is to strictly ban any hate-speech against one another. Unfortunately for Trump-supporters, this means that because their leader has been pretty hateful to certain minorities in the past, in particular the LGBTQ+ communities and to those of a different skin tone, they have to stop any mention of his administration on their website.

I entirely agree with Ravelry and think they have done well to ban hate-speech as diplomatically as they have. No pomp and circumstance- just three lines on their homepage. In fact, by encouraging users to not engage in political discussions, it keeps the website as it intended to be: a community of yarn-aholics. They’re just enforcing the rules.

And granted, while hate-speech and the Trump administration are two separate things, they are unfortunately too closely linked, with hate crimes in the US rising by 17% since the inauguration (according to FBI statistics).

Coincidentally, just as this has all been kicking off in the US, myself and A have been catching up on Season 3 of Designated Survivor. Tonight’s episode features Jamie Clayton- an openly transgendered actress- who plays President Tom Kirkman’s sister-in-law. In the show, the press has just leaked the information to the public and all hell is breaking loose.

It’s almost like it was perfectly timed.

What this situation with Ravelry teaches us is this: hate groups and intolerance are different political positions. It’s just sad that in this day and age, they’re dancing a little too close to each other. So I agree that interference is needed. After all, the only thing that should divide us on Ravelry is whether we use a hook or a needle.

And even then, we still all love yarn.

I am pro-choice, pro-same-sex-marriage, pro-EU, pro-LGBTQ+, pro-diversity and I am definitely pro-Ravelry.

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