If anything this is escalating the problem by silencing the opposition and further entrenching both sides.
Their policy is at https://www.ravelry.com/content/no-trump .
Their argument is "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."
So by "both sides" it seems like you mean the one side in favor of white supremacy, and the other side not in favor of white supremacy?
Why should a knitting site allow support for open white supremacy?
It really hurts any credibility someone may have granted you in a conversation when you ascribe to one side of a discussion a world view that is condemned by the vast majority of that side.
I can support woman's suffrage without being rightly defined as supporting white supremacy.
How do you distinguish between "taken as axiomatic" and "is the case"?
Eg, I can describe 1970s South Africa as being a white supremacist society, yes?
You certainly agree that at one point US laws were based on white supremacy, right? Eg, the Illinois Constitution of 1848, quoting https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Illinois_Constitution_of_1848 :
> The general assembly shall, at its first session under the amended constitution, pass such laws as will effectually prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state;and to effectually prevent the owners of slaves from bringing them into this state for the purpose of setting them free.
That sounds pretty white-supremacy, yes?
If so, when did the US stop being a white supremacist society, and how?
I did say "can be", not "is always defined as such, in a logically-consistent way"! One point that should be quite obvious is that one can always say "that doesn't go far enough!" in a totally unfalsifiable way. (And yes, people have made such arguments, seemingly in all seriousness, even about such things as women's suffrage or civil-rights legislation!) It's a mistake to think that this sort of mindset is restricted by any kind of logic or rationality.
> How do you distinguish between "taken as axiomatic" and "is the case"? ... If so, when did the US stop being a white supremacist society, and how?
Again, the point is that the radical-progressive mindset is not interested in such questions. They are simply not seen as something that's inherently legitimate as a subject of inquiry. You are naïvely assuming that the appeal to notions such as "white supremacy" is intended to be meaningful - to say something, anything about the real world - when in fact it might as well be something that's said purely "for the lulz", for the sheer amusement of making one's political opponents uncomfortable. It's less about "debate" of any sort than it is about sheer intimidation and willful confusion.
Our society is not homogenous enough to make a statement like "white supremacist society" substantial. However, there are three closely-related truths which are pretty obvious about our society:
* Our society is, itself, a fascist, classist, militaristic society.
* Pockets of people and parochial cultures in some specific regions are white supremacists.
This isn't definitional or axiomatic, but if you don't perceive these things as true in your day-to-day experience of our country, then you're not likely to feel that they're true. And that's fine! We don't have to agree. But it's useful to point out how and where we don't agree.
Before doing that, I'll note that you were the first to use the term 'society' in this thread. My previous statements were along the lines of 'support for open white supremacy'. I think "society" is a distraction because there's always the "not all" objection - not all white people in Virgiania in 1850s were in favor of slavery, even though it was a slave society.
So when I mean "society", I mean "the main cultural views as reinforced by the government and others with political, economic, and physical power".
Going back to my earlier questions, which I'll augment:
1) can the 1970s South Africa be described as a white supremacist society? I think it can. For obvious reasons.
2) can the 1850s US be described as a white supremacist society? I think it can, for obvious reasons.
3) can the 1950s US be described as a white supremacist society? I think it can. Jim Crow laws. Sundowner towns, Redlining, Mississippi Burning.
4) can the current US be described as a white supremacist society? I have come to the conclusion that viewing the dominate power structures in the US as being strongly influenced by white supremacy is a valid, though incomplete one.
If you reject that 'white-supremacist society' is a useful term, then perhaps you shouldn't have introduced it?
The linked-to document gives a pointer to its "citations/references", which is hosted on RPG.net. I then quoted those citations.
While many disagree with those arguments, that's quite different than saying they gave no arguments at all.
Then don't reply, and jog on. You can easily ignore the concentration camps for brown people on your southern border too, the USA is big and the the border is likely far away from you.
I don't blame a knitting website for not wanting to have this discussion. People of all kinds of views can still discuss _kitting_ there.
The way the world works now, with media splits and filter bubbles, your statement is actually fairly accurate: "we aren't even living in the same reality and any further discussion is completely pointless."
That doesn't sound like a white supremacist/neo-nazi.
I feel that you're bringing up international politics in a discussion about US domestic politics is mostly meant to derail the conversation.
You realize that more factors are involved than just white supremacy, right?
BTW, the $38B 10-year military-assistance Memorandum of Understanding was signed on September 14, 2016 during the Obama administration, and "partly a response to the nuclear deal that the United States and other world powers finalized with Iran". https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/09/un... .
Meanwhile Netanyahu campaigns with Trump, names a town in the Golan after Trump... which violates the key characteristic of white supremacy: namely not liking Jews; ergo he is not a white supremacist
Several 19th century state constitutions prohibited black people from moving to them. This should be correctly understood as white supremacy. They did not prevent Jews from moving to them.
Hence those terms are distinct and have not merged for any serious discussion of the topic.
Again, foreign policy != domestic policy. Black slavers and free abolitionists opposed to each others' domestic policies, but some worked together for the foreign policy of having blacks return to Africa, in the American Colonization Society's colonization of Liberia.
Or you can see how a Christian Zionist like Pat Robertson can be both anti-Semitic and support the Jewish state.
Last I heard, "There is no budgeting, no planning, no location for a settlement, and there is no binding decision to implement the project" for that settlement, says Zvi Hauser at https://www.timesofisrael.com/no-plans-no-budget-trump-heigh... , who describes it as a publicity stunt.
Ergo, what you point out isn't really germane.
US domestic policy in the 1950s was explicitly based on white supremacy. Jim Crow laws were actively enforced. Yet the US supported the creation of the State of Israel.
"Golda Meir describes Nixon in her autobiography as the best friend Israel ever had in the presidency and does so in life and death terms." says http://www.jewishmag.com/167mag/kissinger-nixon-war-watergat... which goes on to say "But… Nixon, like many anti-Semites, had a deep admiration for Israel and Israelis".
Nixon's "Southern strategy", infamously, was designed to appeal to racism against African Americans.
So there's no inherent contradiction here.