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Build For Tomorrow

Simple Pleasures Aren’t Simple (See: Knitting)

Build For Tomorrow

Jason Feifer

Business, History, Technology, Entrepreneurship

4.7573 Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2021

⏱️ 44 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Is everything really political these days? Or has it always been that way? To answer that, let’s look at the story of knitting. Can anything get simpler than knitting? Balls of yarn! Comfy socks! So when the knitting community began reckoning with racism recently, many people complained that it ruined their simple pleasure.  But the history of knitting is long and controversial — and includes many of today’s most hotly debated topics. (Sexism! Conspiracy theories! Fears of automation!) On this episode: Knitting’s surprising past, and what happens when one knitter tries to make change today. Get in touch: Website: jasonfeifer.com Newsletter: jasonfeifer.bulletin.com Instagram: Instagram.com/heyfeifer Twitter: Twitter.com/heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Something unexpected has arrived in Happy Meal. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Hello Kitty and friends are teaming up for the ultimate collab.

0:08.3

Joining your little ones on a fun-fueled adventure. Some fun, some food, it's all inside this happy meal.

0:16.3

Until the 2nd of February from 11am includes one pre-selected book or toy whilst it's last.

0:20.4

This is Build for Tomorrow, a podcast about the unexpected things that shape us and how we can shape the future.

0:26.7

I'm Jason Pfeiffer, and in each episode, I take something that seems concerning or confusing today,

0:31.7

and I figure out where it came from, what important things we're missing, and how to be more optimistic about tomorrow.

0:38.5

To any outsider, knitting would seem as simple and serene as anything in our loud and chaotic world could possibly be.

0:46.6

I mean, you've got balls of yarn, comfy socks, maybe some rocking chairs.

0:51.4

But not all was right in the world of knitting, and that started to

0:55.0

become very clear in January of 2019. Here is how it began for one knitter. I'm very much into

1:02.6

listening to my fan base, my followers, my fiber family. This is a woman known in the knitting

1:09.0

world affectionately as Gigi. I'll give her a proper

1:12.5

introduction later, but for now, all you need to know is that Gigi has fans. And they kept asking me, what do you think? What do you think? And I'm like, what do I think about what? And they're like, you're not talking about it. Talking about what? The blog post that everybody's fighting about. It did not take long for Gigi to find the blog post.

1:28.5

It was titled My Year of Color, and it was written by a white woman who talked about how she had

1:33.7

always wanted to visit India, and now she was finally doing it.

1:37.5

She wrote in detail about how India seemed so far away and magical and mysterious.

1:43.3

She wrote, quote, if I can go to India, I can do anything.

1:46.9

I'm pretty sure, end quote. It doesn't seem like she meant to upset anyone with this. If anything,

1:52.8

I think she thought she was paying India a compliment. But of course, the post contained all

1:57.4

those stereotypes of a white person, romanticizing a culture that isn't theirs.

2:02.2

And that cracked open something in the world of knitting.

2:05.3

People of color who had long felt excluded or unseen in knitting started sharing their

...

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