Yarn bombing racists

[Wu Wei]

How is this not a Monty Python sketch????

Do we have a mouth-dropping emoji?

 

[Nakosis]

I follow an account on twitter called New Real Peer Review which compiles some of the most ridiculous articles published in genuine scholarly journals. It is very funny and highly recommended (although slightly disconcerting that this **** actually gets published as scholarship).

Today they published something from the academic journal Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, called 'Yarn Bombing and the Aesthetics of Exceptionalism'.

Yarn bombing is putting knitting on public stuff for fun, but apparently this is a sign of racist/classist white supremacy.

Some excerpts:

Yarn bombing is affirmed as a public good only inasmuch as it is the exceptional expression of the revolutionary potential of graffiti safeguarded through the provincial sensibilities of Western, middle class whiteness. In this way, discourses and practices surrounding yarn bombing work to reshape the rebellious qualities of graffiti by reconfiguring this subversive art’s cultural modalities

The tagging practices of the yarn bombing community, while sometimes innocuous, frequently represent a kind of “hipster racism,” replete with cultural appropriation and powered by an aesthetics of exceptionalism. Yarn bombers frequently tag their works with laminated notecards.. a significant portion tag their works with names that connote black, urban figures. For example, the Knotorious N.I.T., P-Knitty, and Micro-Fiber Militia all re-use names associated with black rappers from New York City. Brooklyn Sock Mafia, Richmond Craft Mafia, FemiKnit Mafia, and Memphis Knit Mafia are tonguein-cheek titles that ironically proclaim the crew is a violent gang that performs cuddly artistic interventions. The most egregious of these tags is the name for the internationally celebrated mother of yarn bombing, Magda Sayeg. Trading on the popularity of a phrase known variously as a song by Jay-Z, an album by Ol’ Dirty *******, and a black colloquialism, Sayeg’s tag, “Knitta, please,” is merely the worst of numerous related examples of noxious cultural appropriation.

the exceptionalist position of yarn bombing aesthetics works by suggesting a revolutionary event is possible while impeding that very intervention. In part, the articulation between femininity and the politics of class and capital prohibit such an occasion. By intermingling the gendered and sexualized politics of yarn bombing with the modalities of class and capital, this exceptionalist aesthetic fortifies the attachments of the status quo...

... the aesthetic values of Western, feminine domesticity assume a global status that exports a particular notion of class to heterogeneous locales. In this articulation of the middle class, the time and space of the suburban, family home is contrasted to the cold surfaces of the city. Yarn graffiti’s subversive potential is imbricated in layering domestic style over the sterile, urban scene. Such articulations shore up the exceptional privilege of yarn bombing. In contrast to the supposedly degrading urban environment, yarn bombing is positioned as valuable given its associations with the middle class and the soothing aesthetic delights of the suburban home.



So, are yarn bombers hipster racists who are guilty of classism and cultural appropriation?

Damn racists...
Who the hell has time for this?
I'ma going to channel my inner racism by knitting a sweater for you.

OMG, I just realized, this means Grandma was a racist.