I've taken a longer than anticipated break from this than I was initially expecting. I don't have any new, exciting research breakthroughs or events attended or other real related SCA updates to share in terms of anything that pushes along what I've been doing.
That's not to say I've not been through changes when it comes to the SCA, and my place within it.
First of everything, I've officially, if quietly, stepped away from House Strangewayes. I had wished for it to have been a more amicable break than it turned out to be, but the maturity with which my leaving was handled was outside my control. I wish no ill will on the current members of the House, even now, and I have no intention of spread gross and dirty rumor through this (or any other) channel. Just rest assured, whoever may still be reading, that it's been about 8 months since I'd moved on from the House and I am much happier for it. I hope the House and the members continue to pursue their goals.
As you may have put together, this was around the same time that Trimgate happened, which was one of the last things I had updated on. Trimgate, as it's come to be known as I understand it, had a rather profound impact on me. The timing of it -- being essentially coincidental to my reassessing where I sat within the Society being a "free agent" -- gave me a lot of pause.
It turned what was going to be a few months of break while I got my head about me and figured out what I wanted to really do on my own, into the break you're seeing now. Frankly, the way it had been handled by the leadership within the SCA was a huge turn off at a time I was vulnerable. An open comment period, where I did write the Board, and then 7 months of no official statements regarding the incident, the issue of racism in general, and some of the problematic policies/practices which allowed for such an incident to occur. I was disappointed and, frankly, as a gay man with racial minority children, did not at all feel like I could be safe within the SCA. The threads of apologism that kept percolating up also didn't help.
If I'm going to participate in a hobby which expects me to show up, be counted and be seen in order to be considered a part of it, then I want that hobby to strenuously work to be a safe place for me and people like me. The SCA failed in that task.
I had kept a low, outside profile for the following months. Pennsic came and I was starting to feel a pang of nostalgia and want. I wanted to do it again. I wanted to figure out how to best go about participating in a way that I could presume my own safety. How I could make a mark, while also keeping my family safe. That, maybe, this was something that could be pushed for change, and that I could find a way to forgive the poor actions of the Board of Directors downward.
Then the Trimaris Order of Defense incident happened.
As a result, I dropped myself from all contact within the SCA. I cannot, at this point, associate myself with an organization so inept at the basics of racism and racial bias as to do nothing in the face of what is clearly a rising tide of white nationalism and white supremacy within the rank and file.
I didn't lose the SCA; the SCA lost me. I cannot and will not be associated with white nationalism, white supremacy and this kind of white ignorance. No hobby is worth that.
I may continue to do the research I love on my own, but I've not really decided what I'm going to do in regards to all of that. Right now, I've been focus on other passions in my life which I'd not been able to pursue because of the demands of my life, and the demands of the SCA.
I have a new job, at a new company. I have my two boys, who're my entire world. I have projects at home I've been putting off that I'm finally starting to tackle with the attention they deserve. I want to make my life more ecologically friendly -- from my consumerism to my landscaping and garden. All of these things I've been passionate about, but back burned to hobble along in the SCA as a persona no one really felt comfortable having.
I'm going to keep this blog up, because I think what I've already uncovered may be of some help to someone, but I am not going to make a concerted effort to continue my research, at least for now. Instead, I've been toying with starting a blog for my landscaping, gardening and sustainability efforts. I'm not totally sold on that, yet, because there is already a glut of those kinds of resources and voices, but it's on the radar.
Until next time.
26 August 2018
01 February 2018
Uncomfortable
Medieval Studies has a white supremacy problem.
Recently, this came knocking on the SCA's door with what's been called "trimgate". Royals outside my kingdom wore a commissioned garment with a trim based on the Snartemo V pattern. I will not link or display the image directly, as it would be a distraction. They have abdicated and their Kingdom is in a healing process right now. I'm not here to interrupt or otherwise impede the healing of another Kingdom, my Kingdom is still healing from its own, very different, trauma.
What I want to unpack is what I'm seeing as an aftermath. This is a departure from my usual writing, so if you've come here for research updates and the like, this is an entry you can certainly skip. I feel compelled to say something, anything, in the effort that my words can help explain what so many people are still feeling, and it requires me to break down the fantasy and build in the very real person who does the research into the hypothetical Erdeneqadajin.
I am a white gay man, and a father to two beautiful black children. My entire life outside the SCA is looks and judgments. I come to the SCA as an escape from the grind of life. Much of my found family plays the game; we encourage each other and support each other.
What I'm seeing is that this is not the rule, but rather the exception for people like me.
If you clicked on the link for the Snartemo V pattern, you can see the original is believed to have a fylfot, or Norse swastika. The interpretation that is causing the outrage took the swatiska, and matched it with other symbols of the Nazi party and the neo-Nazi movement. Whether this is based on an academic interpretation of the weave, or infused with artistic license, I don't think matters. What does matter is that it was there, large, in photographs for the SCA, devoid of context.
What matters more is that when there was an outrage, a justifiable outrage, those people were made to be the problem. They were told they were opposed to historicism, that the history of the garment outweighed the real history that came after it. The glossing over of the co-opting of Norse history by white supremacy and what could have been a real discussion of how the SCA, which is increasingly seeing a surge of Viking-age personae, separates people who are lovers of the real history of the Vikings from those who use the fantasy of Aryan crusaders ridding the world of non-Aryan people.
This echos the complaints about the harassment policy put in place to help combat bullying and sexual harassment that needed addressing right before the #MeToo movement exploded into consciousness. Where "the SJWs are ruining the game" with their "PC nonsense".
Even more, it's the same vein of complaint levied against Inspirational Equality, which was launched directly for people like me, who kept seeing men fight for their wives and wondered what the real harm was if a man wanted to fight for his husband (or wife for wife, of course). Once again, it was the SJWs making problems for the rest of the society, clutching their pearls about things that "weren't important".
At what point, then, do we admit that there is a huge problem with Reactionary Conservatism embedded within the culture of the SCA? When do we soul search and determine who wins -- the people who take into consideration the modern meanings and visuals of what we're doing in conjunction with the history we're looking to be inspired by?
More personally, who gets to feel comfortable in the SCA? The people who think it's ok to put swastika on garb, harass women and keep it straight? or is it the people who think that ignoring the importance of the swastika is Holocaust denial, think that all people should have protection and see no harm in letting other people fully participate?
I don't know if there's really enough people looking for an answer to that. That's a huge problem that needs addressing.
Recently, this came knocking on the SCA's door with what's been called "trimgate". Royals outside my kingdom wore a commissioned garment with a trim based on the Snartemo V pattern. I will not link or display the image directly, as it would be a distraction. They have abdicated and their Kingdom is in a healing process right now. I'm not here to interrupt or otherwise impede the healing of another Kingdom, my Kingdom is still healing from its own, very different, trauma.
What I want to unpack is what I'm seeing as an aftermath. This is a departure from my usual writing, so if you've come here for research updates and the like, this is an entry you can certainly skip. I feel compelled to say something, anything, in the effort that my words can help explain what so many people are still feeling, and it requires me to break down the fantasy and build in the very real person who does the research into the hypothetical Erdeneqadajin.
I am a white gay man, and a father to two beautiful black children. My entire life outside the SCA is looks and judgments. I come to the SCA as an escape from the grind of life. Much of my found family plays the game; we encourage each other and support each other.
What I'm seeing is that this is not the rule, but rather the exception for people like me.
If you clicked on the link for the Snartemo V pattern, you can see the original is believed to have a fylfot, or Norse swastika. The interpretation that is causing the outrage took the swatiska, and matched it with other symbols of the Nazi party and the neo-Nazi movement. Whether this is based on an academic interpretation of the weave, or infused with artistic license, I don't think matters. What does matter is that it was there, large, in photographs for the SCA, devoid of context.
What matters more is that when there was an outrage, a justifiable outrage, those people were made to be the problem. They were told they were opposed to historicism, that the history of the garment outweighed the real history that came after it. The glossing over of the co-opting of Norse history by white supremacy and what could have been a real discussion of how the SCA, which is increasingly seeing a surge of Viking-age personae, separates people who are lovers of the real history of the Vikings from those who use the fantasy of Aryan crusaders ridding the world of non-Aryan people.
This echos the complaints about the harassment policy put in place to help combat bullying and sexual harassment that needed addressing right before the #MeToo movement exploded into consciousness. Where "the SJWs are ruining the game" with their "PC nonsense".
Even more, it's the same vein of complaint levied against Inspirational Equality, which was launched directly for people like me, who kept seeing men fight for their wives and wondered what the real harm was if a man wanted to fight for his husband (or wife for wife, of course). Once again, it was the SJWs making problems for the rest of the society, clutching their pearls about things that "weren't important".
At what point, then, do we admit that there is a huge problem with Reactionary Conservatism embedded within the culture of the SCA? When do we soul search and determine who wins -- the people who take into consideration the modern meanings and visuals of what we're doing in conjunction with the history we're looking to be inspired by?
More personally, who gets to feel comfortable in the SCA? The people who think it's ok to put swastika on garb, harass women and keep it straight? or is it the people who think that ignoring the importance of the swastika is Holocaust denial, think that all people should have protection and see no harm in letting other people fully participate?
I don't know if there's really enough people looking for an answer to that. That's a huge problem that needs addressing.
13 January 2018
Sad Day
I feel like this a necessary update, but it tears my heart apart to post it. I'm going to take this right from my personal (non-SCA) Facebook page, with supporting other links inserted.
I was nearly ready to give up on the research I do. I was wondering if I should try a different persona or who knows what else.
Then I got a quest from the Queen and warm appreciation from the King. He shook my hand and calmed my nerves.
It is the small kindnesses that show you who someone really is.
There is hope Duke Kenric is still out there, waiting. And so we stoke those fires until the fuel is gone.
I don't know him well at all, but we quake at the loss of greatness, kindness and care.
To absent friends.
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