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.
