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

I’ve looked up the ‘where did you come from?’ teaching game. I misrepresented it.

She says (my bold)

“At first, when I started out with classes here, I tried my favourite introductory game: asking the students *where their name came from.”

twitter.com/chimenesuleyman/status/1488142107302899712?s=20

This is the thread referring to KC being asking by a former pupil to stop calling her a refugee and then apparently calling her a refugee.

where do you come from’ question is integral to her method of teaching poetry

"Where do you come from" is actually a pretty crap question. She found that out from the Somali boy- being near the Kenyan border wasn't something he wanted known. I don't think it's improbable that other children might not want to disclose where they had come from.

"Tell me your story" is a better question.

Incidentally Chimeme Suleymann tweeted today about one of KC's pupils who had asked KC to stop referring to her as a refugee. KC then tweeted something like "guess I called her a refugee once too much"

So she shouldn’t have told the story at all, Kimiko?

I mean , fgs, what the hell has that got to do with anything?

So yes, clear evidence of her own prejudices and blinkered thinking. Whether she learned anything , I don't know.

How should she have described the two kids - Somali and Kenyan - in that story?

All I can see is that the conclusion is she shouldn’t have told that story at all.

A story about her own prejudice and race-blindness that made her the problem, because she didn’t understand until it was pointed out to her. She’s saying ‘This was my prejudice’.

Well, yes, that is racist. But there's no evidence at all that it's what happened in this case.

Yes- it's none of her business. It's 100% up to the children as to how much or how little they want to tell her or how much or how little they want to claim of a heritage.

Btw, nowhere in the actual words she wrote des it suggest otherwise. She’s just reflecting on possible reasons for that after the fact, in a book about cultural attitudes to class and race.

I think there is a big middle ground between pretending not to notice racial features/differences, and interrogating people and making assumptions about them. Not doing one doesn’t mean you have to do the other.

I don’t think you should read the book, Kimiko. It’s basically predicated on her poetry practice with children from diverse backgrounds where the ‘where do you come from’ question is integral to her method of teaching poetry.

So if you don’t like that, you won’t see any value in any of the book at all.

Good to see that, not having read the book, you're maintaining a determinedly fair-minded approach

Well I said “i wonder if” because I meant that. It might or might not explain their attitude.

I thought being persistently asked where you’re from was well-known to be a thing that can irritate people in this kind of situation.

Squirrels has already explained the context. I don't think "badgering" is an accurate description of asking a whole class an open question and being tacitly surprised at some of their answers.

Briefly, are you saying that she "should see people, not race"? Or, since that is impossible - given everyone's prejudices - at least pretend?

It's 100% up to the children as to how much or how little they want to tell her or how much or how little they want to claim of a heritage.

Yes. It is. The varying degrees of the pupils' pride in their diverse heritage is also relevant to a discussion of racism and identity within their community.

It's far more reasonable than Clanchy's assumption that (a) someone looks Ashkenazi or looks Somali and therefore comes with certain cultural baggage and (b) she has the right to quiz them about it.

I wonder if they wanted her to stop badgering them about it.

Good to see that, not having read the book, you're maintaining a determinedly fair-minded approach.

Here is the beginning and end of the story about the boy with the ‘Somali skull’ and ‘chocolate coloured skin’.

An exercise in ‘where do you come from’ is how she describes it, and that it had had different outcomes both in the Scottish school and her inner London school. This Essex school was remarkable in that the exercise didn’t yield anything- that’s why she’s pondering it

Fgs - I can't believe anyone is trying to justify this on the basis of "where do you come from? "

As for the need to distinguish "skin colour tones" - yes it is racist in most cases.

I can think of examples where it is relevant such as light skinned Cubans of Spanish descent being prejudiced against dark skinned Cubans of African descent (apparantly that is a thing). But to routinely comment on skin colour? No that is racist.

It’s not the case she was picking on a Jewish child about the size of their nose, although I can see that this incident could trigger the accusations of anti-Semitism and in retrospect I’m sure she wishes she’d chosen a different example. No one has (as far as I’ve seen, anyway) thought the kid with the Irish surname was being unfairly stereotyped in this passage though she treats them equally as examples - I understand why the ‘Ashkenazi nose’ is more deeply felt as problematic, of course, and someone should have raised this in editing with her as a potential problem.

equates both boys not being interested in claiming any heritage/ancestors as equally perplexing/interesting to her.

I wonder if they wanted her to stop badgering them about it.

It was beyond irrelevant to know if this boy was Jewish.

If her pupil felt it was relevant to tell her, either directly, or indirectly by exploring Jewish heritage in his own work , then fine, no issues

But , absent that- what on earth was the relevance of Jewish "physicality" to Clanchy?

In the piece she’s pondering why, in this very-close-to-multicultural-London location, none of her pupils seem to have any other cultural or racial identity other than ‘normal, Miss’ (i.e. Essex born & bred look no further). She mentions not only the boy’s physical attributes but also his name as being a typical Jewish surname. She does exactly the same to a pupil with an Irish surname and equates both boys not being interested in claiming any heritage/ancestors as equally perplexing/interesting to her.

So far as all the "chocolate coloured skin" - why? I think we can all assume a Somali refugee won't be white.

In context in the book she’s often describing a multitude of different ethnicities and races and so she’s distinguishing skin colour tones as part of her description. She does the same to the white pupils too. You can argue that the food metaphors and ‘chocolate’ thing is cliched, and problematic, but the mere act of describing the skin tone/colour of a Somali person or an Afghan person isn’t racist in itself. Or is it?