Grandma's Social Circle
The K is never silent, mmmkay
My nana is 95 years old but she’s still living life to the fullest. She’s old enough to recall the Great Depression and World War II. She remembers where she was at when JFK was shot and when Clinton announced, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” Widowed for 15 years, she still stays close to her 5 children, 16 grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren. She may not get to see her descendants every day but she has a wonderful group of friends at her assisted living facility in Florida. It’s her immediate friendships that keep her going and motivates her to become a centurion. Loneliness and isolation is what prevents people from living a life with purpose. As long as her homies give her a reason to get out of bed in the morning, she may live forever.
Grandma’s hobbies include daily walking, baking bread, playing Mahjong, and above all knitting. She loves to knit. Despite her age she still maintains effective use of her hands. Arthritis and joint pain never afflicted the use of her fingers. She keeps them busy by knitting 3 hours a day. She knits everything from sweaters to scarves for all of her grandchildren and their families. The Happy Haven Retirement Village is set up for outgoing personalities, it’s not some geezer ghetto like they have in Boca Raton. Here they have a number of social meetup groups, where the residents can meet up for pickleball, bridge and even knitting. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday Grandma Sylvia can meet up with her favorite group of people. All of her best friends are in the knitting group with her. She simply refers to all of them as my knitters.
Deez knitters be threading and shredding every muthaphuckin’ day. They are hard pipe hittin’ knitters who be splicing that cloth for all the boyz and girlz out there. Tha knitters are a tight knit group of elderly women who refer to each other by the K-word. They be like my knitter, or what is up my knitter? Quit clowning me knitter! Knitter what, knitter who? Since these grandmothers share a common affinity they have the reserved right to refer to each other as knitter, or my knitta. Like grandma always says, true knitters love weed and hoes.
It is considered racist and derogatory for people that don’t knit to call a member of the knitting community a knitter. It can be seen as a pejorative and used in an insulting manner. It may not be an ethnic epithet, but it singles out those individuals who knit as a hobby. Using the K-word out of context is like calling an African American gentleman a Sir Mix A Lot black ass. You just don’t do it. It can incite hatred and invite violence. This slur, which can always be heard in sewing circles, has its origins in the Trans-Atlantic immigration passages of the 19th century. Whenever a bunch of elderly white women from Europe were sailing to the new world and knitting, they started calling each other knitters. The term became so common that hymn lyrics were molded around this single word. The K-word is an ugly and oppressive connotation and should not be uttered by anyone. Even Quentin Tarantino won’t use it in his movies’ dialogue. Only those who knit, which should be heralded as a special victim class, get to use the K-word to full effect. These people have experienced centuries of institutional bias and they simply won’t tolerate being called knitter anymore.
Whenever this group of grandmas heads to the Hobby Lobby they announce, “Hey knitter, what sort of chunky yarn can I get knitta? Does yo bitch ass need some large ass needles knitta? Don’t be a cheap ass when I go and get some supplies, pay me those ends knitta?” Always making a scene they give their fellow senior citizens a good laugh and are sometimes greeted with alarm by their caretakers. When these knitters pile into their Coup Deville on their way to get some 40s and yarn, they always be bumping 2Pac. They be thuggin’ and muggin’ since they aren’t crooked knittas but made knittas loyal to tha knitting game. Blasting Holla If Ya Hear Me these white haired ladies flip off rollerbladers and live by the creed Strictly 4 My Knittaz.
G’Ma and her crew have earned and represented their gang affiliation known as the KWA, an abbreviation for Knittaz Wit Attitudes. These golden girls have been spinnin’ yarns and burnin’ barns ever since they came outta the nutsack. Lately they’ve been having trouble with a rival sewing circle called the East Side Threadz. This group of gals, representing Tranquil Transitions Living Facility, has been hording all of the pink yarn from the Hobby Lobby and shot up my grandma’s 89 LeBaron in a drive-by. These knitters knit all day and knit out by night. Grandma Sylvia has had it with these ladies and is looking to turn some knittas’ bodies cold. By twisting dis knitta’s cap back, she’ll be sending a message that she’s the number one knitta in all of Palm Beach County.
The KWA is a tolerant organization and accepts any peeps from across the spectrum. Since they live in South Florida they have Black, Jewish and Puerto Rican members. They even have badass grandmas from the Haitian Nation representing Knittaz Wit Attitudes. As long as you be knittin’ and stitchin’, and can make it through the gang initiation, you’re golden. True knitters don’t discriminate, they eliminate da H8. For community outreach they host bake sales and even knitted mittens for BLM protestors during the George Floyd riots. Without hard-ass knitters on the block enforcing street cred, the Happy Haven Retirement Village would lose mad respect.
Hey yo Dre, here’s a little knitter from around the way,
With an assortment of colored yarns and an AK.
She be rollin’ and trollin’ with some bad ass bitches,
Threading scarves and dishing out mad ass stitches to snitches.
Some say that Grandma Sylvia is the top knitter in KWA,
She be knitting each and every goddamn day.
Don’t even think about taking a picture,
Double-cross her at Hobby Lobby and she’ll put an end to you knitta!
Knittin’ ain’t e-z. After a hard day of gang-bangin’ and yarn-slangin,’ deez knitters like to let loose in their rocking chairs and watch the sun go down as they kick it in Florida. Unwinding to the lyrics of Busta Rhymes and Snoop D-O-Double G, these grannies decompress with some of that old gangsta shit while they knit. Ironing some khaki pants and cleaning their TEC-9s, deez knitters be contemplating how they will expand their turf war into the nearby town’s Hobby Lobby. Mildred’s grandbabies live in Minnesota and she needs a whole lot of yarn to knit winter caps. She’ll be damned if any fake ass knitters be hording the purple yarn she needs to make her amazing creations. Always down with the 187, Mildred isn’t scared of sending some punk ass knittas to the undertaker. Some of her fellow gang members have nicknamed her the craziest knitter alive. She may not be as OG as the elders of KWA, but at the age of 83 Mildred is just a young knitta coming up in tha sewing game.
Ain’t no trigger warnings, when there’s knitter war games in da mornings. Knitter please. If you wanna be my knitta grab some yarn and your tool kit and get to work. Pour out a little liquor for the knittaz who ain’t here and let’s sip some Courvoisier. You best be threadin’ red hats for your head than to end up dead and fed to the rats. Better to be a K-N-I-T-T-A where you get to drink, sew, and smoke weed all day. Grandma Sylvia may only have a few good years left in her but she’ll ride or die with the members of KWA wherever they end up knitting. She was born a knitter and will go out a knitter, since real knitters don’t die.
Disclaimer: You can only use the K-word if you regularly knit. There’s no glory in commercializing this ugly slur. Racism, sexism, and Islamotranshomophobia ceases when all of God’s children come together and refrain from using the K-word.
Brian Ss
