Amanda Gorman’s Dutch translater sacked for being ‘white and non-binary’

[Angelica789]

Campaigners argued that Marieke Lucas Rijnveld wasn’t a suitable person to translate Amanda Gorman’s latest poetry book into Dutch as they are not black and female, and the author has pulled out as a consequence.

This is interesting to me because if we continue to give such weight to identity above other characteristics, such as skill as a writer, it will affect marginalised groups far more than anyone else, yet these are ones campaigning hardest for identity based policies.

Interesting observations theleafandnotthetree. My English Methodist/ atheist ex likes the Angelus because it's ' the only thing on RTE not about money '. I suspect there is a a large dollop of post colonial cringe ' what will the neighbours think ' in our attitude to Catholicism now

Woah!

Black female author chooses ground breaking non binary translator and that's an issue because the translator isn't also black?

Can we stop popping people into boxes now?

If the protests did come from black people can we stop putting ourselves into boxes now?

I don't think persistently 'Othering' ourselves and everyone else is going to be helpful, whatever the end game is!

This reminds me so much of an argument that went on in my field (linguistics) where woke activists were calling on a certain (so-called terf) linguist to be removed from syllabuses and replaced with trans linguists instead. Now the removed linguist had decades of publications, experience and knowledge. The trans linguists were all at the beginning of their careers and had in some cases, no publications at all. That didn't matter. All that mattered was identity. It is so infuriating, counterproductive and yes, daft. Are we going to suggest that all books are translated by someone of the same sex, age, and race now?

This debate is also going on in audiobooks. How do you have a narrator bringing the book to life by making the voices in the book sufficiently different that they are easily identifiable when listening to a book whilst driving etc, without caricaturing the characters in terms of race, sex etc. Will we end up with the reader giving all characters the same voice? If they are voicing children I won't mind that as most readers have a very irritating squeaky "small child" voice.

Marieke Lucas is going to write a poem about what has happened. It will appear in the newspaper next Saturday. Don't know which newspaper. There is a newspaper literally called the newspaper 'De Krant'.

twitter.com/MLRijneveld/status/1366491929760907266

They do say there is no such thing as bad publicity. Never heard of Marieke before (philistine me), but I now think 'their' book 'The Discomfort of Evening' looks interesting. Will be having a gander at the poem too.

Would never have heard of 'them' if all this hadn't happened.

Kenan Malik has a brilliant article about this bolloxology in the Guardian. Basically ID politics makes the elites feel good about themselves. But doesn't cost them anything. They can then ignore the elephant : social class.

Here we go, the poem 'they' wrote about it all. "Alles Bewoonbaar' or 'Everything Inhabitable'. In English in the Guardian.

www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/06/everything-inhabitable-a-poem-by-marieke-lucas-rijneveld

Jeepers, 'they' has got great publicity in the Anglophone sphere. I imagine this discussion has benefitted MLR much more than anyone who will take over the translation job.

TL;DR They could do the poem, they totally get AG and what she means. However, they are taking the knee because they know the visuals would be better and the are just stepping away from it to fight inequality.

So, it is not just 'OK, I won't do it 'cos it would make me look bad and I'd lose me USP street cred.

It is more 'By not doing this work which I would be red hot at, I am being a bl**din' saint and deserve to be recognised as such. That is why I wrote this poem so my sainthood could live in posterity. You know I'd be better than anyone else at it'.

I think I'll take up poetry.

@Cailleach1

They do say there is no such thing as bad publicity. Never heard of Marieke before (philistine me), but I now think 'their' book 'The Discomfort of Evening' looks interesting. Will be having a gander at the poem too.

Would never have heard of 'them' if all this hadn't happened.

Of course, I initially read your comment as "will have a gender at the poem too."

Though 'gander' is as binary as 'goose', come to think of it.

@Cailleach1

So, it is not just 'OK, I won't do it 'cos it would make me look bad and I'd lose me USP street cred.

It is more 'By not doing this work which I would be red hot at, I am being a bl**din' saint and deserve to be recognised as such. That is why I wrote this poem so my sainthood could live in posterity. You know I'd be better than anyone else at it'.

I think I'll take up poetry.

You could give it a lash. I mean- this is going to sound cruel - but Gorman's poem is a bit Hallmark greeting card isn't it?

The link above was Marieke LR's poem about how 'they' would not translate AG's poetry and would allow someone else to take the job.

This has been more publicity for Marieke Lucan Rijneveld than anyone else.