Renaissance Faires at risk of White Supremacist takeover

A professor of Medieval Studies at California State University Sacramento has issued a warning to the Renaissance Faire community: the “alt-right” has been infiltrating Ren Faires for decades, and white supremacists are on the verge of taking over.

“Even the Black Knight is a white man,” said Prof. Pheare M. Unger by email. “Not only is that false advertising, but it’s representative of the white male-dominated Eurocentrism that has come to plague Renaissance Faires nationwide.”

“It hasn’t always been this way, but Ren Faires have become synonymous with the Klan,” she said. “The only way they can become more welcoming or more inclusive is if some of us actually devote all of our time and energy to appropriating white male European culture.”

Prof. Unger provided a list of ways such appropriation might happen.

• Put more black people in the stocks, and not just at the Faire
• Demand racial and gender diversity in cleavage contests, even at work
• Make sure a Muslim warrior of color conducts all fake beheadings
• Enlist more footsoldiers of color as mounted knights, whether they can ride or not
• Ensure that the Black Knight is actually black, and then call him the White Knight

“It should be a really, really important time for Ren Faire coordinators to reflect on whether they are, in fact, White Supremacists, and what they can do to combat that,” Prof. Unger concluded.