Nazi Knitters, Fuck Off

Some things are sacred. Ravelry, the online knitting community that provides space for members to share patterns for everything under the sun is one of them. On Sunday, the website said it would not longer tolerate users trying to distract others from the singular joy of knitting with their implicit support of white supremacism. Get that ish OUTTA HERE.

“We are banning support of Donald Trump and his administration on Ravelry,” the statement begins. Raverly’s tone was firm, but kind—assuring people who might get booted off the site for their support of the Trump administration that they would receive copies of their data.

Still, the statement went on:

We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy.

Ravelry makes the distinction so many fail to make when the hate speech vs. conservative speech debate comes up, which is that having shitty, hateful opinions is one thing; sharing them is another thing entirely. To make it easy for people, the website expertly breaks it down:

You can still participate if you do in fact support the administration, you just can’t talk about it here.

We are not endorsing the Democrats nor banning Republicans.

We are definitely not banning conservative politics. Hate groups and intolerance are different from other types of political positions.

It’s easy! The price of entry into Ravelry is never disclosing your support of the president and the administration as they attempt to turn this country into an openly hostile environment towards migrants, LGBT people, pregnant people, and anyone who dares speak up against it. It’s better if you don’t support them at all, but if you must, please never mention it to anyone. Isn’t that pretty basic?