Kate Clanchy - poet - is 'cancelled' by her publisher

And I’m also going to try and buy the book.

Speaking as a writer, I find this terrifying. I’ve not read the book in question and I refuse to judge the passages quoted out of context, but this whole thing suggests that we are heading down a road of silencing.

Should writers be allowed to write racist, sexist, homophobic characters in books? Yes. Should we erase any line that has potential for offends? No.

Writing, books, publishing, should be a place where there is freedom of speech. As a society we should be able to listen to someone and collectively respond with ‘that’s not appropriate’ instead of erasing people.

The thing is, when you start to erase and silence, you drive ideas underground. They do not go away, they change and warp, often with resentment.

What are we achieving as a society by removing things we find unfavourable instead of shaping the way we evolve by letting them stand openly, with open backlash/reviews/disagreement if we don’t like them?

There’s a distinct lack of critical thought, ability to exist uncomfortably, and a weird sort of self-prioritising that is only going to result in a world where there is a distinct lack of opposition. Free speech should be protected (which is very different from protecting the content of said speech, and if you’re unable to tell the difference I would suggest your thinking isn’t particularly refined).

Supporting this sort of silencing is going to lead to bad places. We will have sanitised writing with authors too scared to write anything that reflects diversity/contentiousness/bigotry in the world (that exists and should be written about) and authors too scared to approach anything that might readdress some of the issues discussed (E.g. white writer including black characters) for fear of being vilified if they accidentally get it wrong.

Nobody should be losing their career or having their reputation trashed because some people perceive another's non-racist perspective, experience and speech as microaggressions and some feel othered. Intent does matter. By their nature the concept of microaggression and what someone decides is a microaggression is entirely subjective as is a feeling of being othered. The idea that these concepts (not people being racist) are being used to shut down speech is troubling. The idea that problematic language in some circumstances and cultures has to be removed from all cultures and circumstances (no matter the context or intent) and to try and make that happen by imposing your own perspective on others is authoritarian. We need to encourage people to speak freely without fear and therefore we need to keep the amount of language that we agree as a society cannot be used irrespective of intent to the very smallest number of words possible.

Anyway, I have bought the book.

I don’t see this as a woman cancelled. I see this as a woman held to account for using appalling and inappropriate language. I actually find the spectacle of some of the articulate, critically-minded women I admire here trying to excuse Clanchy’s worldview primarily because she is a woman suffering consequences of her actions quite abhorrent, truth be told.

Racism is not purely about ‘intent’. Its not just burning crosses on the lawn and huffing about not being able to use the N word. It’s a thousand micro aggressions which leave people of colour and ethnic minorities feeling othered and second-class. We can see micro aggressions clearly when it’s everyday misogyny driving them; why do too many people dismiss them when they’re aimed at other races?

I do agree that there’s far more than just Clanchy who should be held to account here - everyone who read this book through its journey to publication should be examining their biases with a self-critical eye.

WTF is that? That's the logic abusers use on their victims, and while I wouldn't give this that kind of weight it is essentially a kind of power play no matter who says it.

If people are harassing them, that is not good, but the fault lies with those doing the harassing.

This reads as enormous hyperbole.

Applause for @SelfPortraitWithPterodactyl

The other problem is that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy - give someone a MS and tell them to comb through it looking for offence, that doing that is their whole purpose, how many people are going to hand back the script without a mark on it? The more instances they find, and the subtler they are, the more their value is enhanced. It's a completely loopy way of doing business.

Others are parroting the “nobody’s talking about her lying about the goodreads review” line. Even though Pravina Rudra did mention it, quite clearly 🙄

These reactions to Pravina Rudra’s article just seem like dishonest hyperbole.

“Actively inciting racial hatred against women of colour”

”Lives threatened for calling out Kate Clanchy’s racist renderings”

“Terrorised for daring to speak truth to power”

The Daily Mail article didn’t mention this woman. It seems somewhat dishonest of her to claim that it’s “significantly increased the physical threat” she faces.

Every time there’s been any media attention on Kate Clanchy within the last few months, Twitter has been full of censure about the abuse and harm inflicted on the 3 WOC who were at the centre of the original storm last summer.

And apparently the horrific abuse they’ve received redoubles and intensifies every time Clanchy’s situation is mentioned in the press.

This abuse re-traumatises and endangers them. And Clanchy knowingly puts them in harm’s way every time she speaks publicly about her situation because these WOC are then abused again.

I’m NOT saying this isn’t true. When this many people are saying it as though it’s incontestable fact, it certainly seems like it must be the truth. But I haven’t actually seen anything like that happening. Has it all been removed from Twitter? Or was it all done via private messaging?

The 3 women all complained Clanchy had re-victimised them through the media reporting on her parting with Pan MacMillan yet they all proceeded to tweet about her daily, repeatedly, over the last week (don’t know about today as two of them have now locked their accounts).

The people attacking her made lots of good points but also wouldn't let go until she's been completely cancelled - I just think it was too much of a pile-on. From my twitter echo chamber the only author I saw get abuse was clanchy.

Same here. I’m genuinely confused over this.

More and more I think this thing about diverse voices is seriously problematic, simply because of the assumption that some individual can speak for a group. It's actually the definition of treating people according to stereotyped views of that sex/race/ethnicity etc.

I was watching a talk by Glen Laoury the other day where he touched on this, he was talking about a list put out (maybe by a library association, I can't quite remember) of prominent black economists - and he noted that he wasn't onthe list - the first black tenured professor at Harvard, an economist who wrote books for popular consumption about both economics and race - and Thomas Sowell, who is one of the most prominent American economists, wasn't on the list. As well as several others. Why not - his feeling was because they weren't the right kind of black Americans, which is to say they didn't ave the right opinions.

I can't help but wonder whose views a sensitivity reader would be representing.

It's complex because KC has made a few mistakes. The language was outdated, and she shouldn't have gone after the reviewer.

But I followed her due to the poetry, which I loved and she shared, and it's a real shame her students won't now be published.

The people attacking her made lots of good points but also wouldn't let go until she's been completely cancelled - I just think it was too much of a pile-on. From my twitter echo chamber the only author I saw get abuse was clanchy. It's like they wouldn't be happy until she was banished from the internet.

She does have some outdated approaches, but she also clearly cares a lot for her students.

I haven't read through the thread entirely so sorry if this has come up before, but so much of this could've been avoided if publishing was a more diverse industry. To have other readers read a script to check if their understanding of the text is the same as what the author feels they have written.
Publishers really need to examine exactly how they can broaden their workforce, the lack of diverse voices is hurting their business. To say nothing of just being out of step.

Cloak, maybe? Coupled with a witch's hat?

Yes. We all outsource our judgements a bit, because we cannot form informed opinions on everything, we simply don't have time. It's only human to say, well, someone whom I trust thinks this is harmful and therefore my hunch is that it probably is harmful. As long as you know you're doing it, and you are open to changing your mind when you find out more, it's just part of negotiating the world.

And no one is saying that you 're not allowed to confidently assert things, regardless of whether you can back them up. Assert all you like. Be as confident as you like. Knock yourself out, it's what the Internet Goodreads was designed for. That's free speech in action.

However, I (and I suspect others on this thread) do rather cling to the quaint old-fashioned view that the respect and attention your opinion receives should be proportionate to your ability to support it.

It reminds me of my local library recently where Pride protesters tried to force them to remove Abigail Shrier's book. One of the things the communications person was quoted as saying was along the lines of "well, would they have Mein Kampf in the library?" Which just goes to show the extent to which some people do not actually understand libraries, writing, how to understand ideas, etc.

Not everyone can read everything, it's impossible, but there is a real danger to this kind of reliance on others opinions. Anyone who reads a lot of significant books will come to understand that you cannot quote mine reliably to come up with an understanding of the argument in a book, what it is about. The context and the structure are as important as any individual quote.

Someone with that kind of experience of reading will rightly be hesitant to condemn any book on the basis of reading just these kinds of quotes, and will refrain from offering an analysis if they haven't read it. Because you cannot analyze a few quotes taken out of context - you can't even understand a book if they are given with context if you haven't read the whole.