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

[ArabellaScott]

Picador are unpublishing - ceasing to distribute - all of Clanchy's books. The article says 'by mutual consent', but it's not a good thing to hear a poet/author being 'cancelled'.

Literature/poetry is not in a healthy state right now.

unherd.com/thepost/picador-cancels-poet-kate-clanchys-books/

In case you missed the brouhaha - Article from last year:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58151144

Thanks, Seven, getting confused by quoted posts, here.

I'm sorry to hear you were upset by the phrase Clanchy used.

My question would be: What do you feel is a proportionate response to a writer using a phrase that people find upsetting? Do you think this is a phrase that should be never put in print? Are we going to maintain a list of words that should not be used?

There is a lot of focus on individual words and phrases on this thread. I've not read the book yet but look forward to seeing the context, and will keep your words & this discussion in mind as I do so.

Isn’t it just?

Nobody has the right not to be offended, or we would end up in a very strange world. That some people think that anything they find offensive should be erased is beyond strange.

And that’s an entirely separate thing from hate speech.

Ah, the above was meant to quote the OP who said the thread is a good example of words being twisted. But for some reason it hasn’t added the quote. Apologies.

Kate Clanchy herself said that the quotations in the review were unacceptable. So unacceptable she would never have used them. She then threatened the reviewer. And ended up having to admit that yes, those quotations (and worse) were in the book.
It is also a safeguarding nightmare.
Checkout #DiReadsClanchy on Twitter

Here are Clanchy's tweets if anyone missed them.

@ArabellaScott

Thanks, Seven, getting confused by quoted posts, here.

I'm sorry to hear you were upset by the phrase Clanchy used.

My question would be: What do you feel is a proportionate response to a writer using a phrase that people find upsetting? Do you think this is a phrase that should be never put in print? Are we going to maintain a list of words that should not be used?

There is a lot of focus on individual words and phrases on this thread. I've not read the book yet but look forward to seeing the context, and will keep your words & this discussion in mind as I do so.

I'm sorry to hear you were upset by the phrase Clanchy used

Thanks, but I wasn't "upset", I was angry, and honestly it feels diminishing that you would characterise anger at racism and anti-Semitism as "getting upset" like we're tearful sulky children.

My question would be: What do you feel is a proportionate response to a writer using a phrase that people find upsetting?

In general? It is obviously contextual and should be judged on a case by case basis. But I have explained the context for this particular phrase, and the context is Clanchy's own failure to realise that she is holding and perpetuating an anti-Semitic trope. I would not and haven't ever called for the book to be withdrawn, but I do think robust criticism is in this case justified and isn't "silencing" or "cancelling" and I do think the publishers are perfectly entitled to end their contract with the author if they want to and this isn't "silencing" or "cancelling" or "book-burning" either. I feel I've made both of these points pretty clearly already.

My honest advice to you is perhaps you should have read the book before you invested yourself so thoroughly in defending it.

I'm not defending the book. I'm asking questions about how people have responded to it and the whole affair.

I've just read the passage where she makes a comment about her presumptions of some childrens' heritage based on their features/ appearances.

It might be an interesting passage for discussion but I have the impression it would be very difficult to discuss without anyone taking offense. So I will form my own opinions on it and just say that she has not used the words people have said she used.

And apologies for using the word 'upset'. I was genuinely not trying to diminish your response at all. Just expressing sympathy.

@ShinyHappyPoster

The trend to silence and erase isn't an imperative of the 'left'. It isn't rooted in any kind of class consciousness. It's exactly the opposite. It's top down, hierarchical and paternalistic.

The biggest con of recent years has been to pretend it's a left-leaning impulse to burn books and shut down ideas. Those actions are right-wing. They always have been and they still are.

A big part of the problem is that some of the most prominent voices who claim to be on the left, obviously aren't. They are wedded to a strongly capitalist, individualist, anti-intellectual view which is bereft of social, political and historic context. They are trying to establish different strands to close down ideas, criticism and free speech. The inroads they are making in publishing and academic institutions are frightening. All of these 'incidents' need to be viewed together.

I don't know how you can even say this. Have you ever spoken to people who have lived under leftist authoritarian regimes? They recognize the impulse that we see here very clearly. What do you think the Cultural Revolution was about?

Or are we now saying those were and are right wing movements?

@EishetChayil

I and other posters have repeatedly said that the language Clanchy uses is hurtful to us and the groups/minorities we are part of. Why is this so hard to understand? It isn't an attack on free speech, or "tribalism". It's a plea that racist, anti-Semitic, and classist language isn't published and defended.

Who is your "we" here?

I don't think the idea of anti-anything tropes means you can decontextualize the actual test. In a book about how we respond to people, if it's an honest book, we will see people's thinking. Whether we like the thinking or not, or like the origins of the thinking or not.

I'd also point out something that seems somewhat to be going under the radar here, which is that ethnicity can often be discerned by people's physical characteristics, and all the more so by those who spend lots of time interacting with those groups of people. There are patterns there that are real. And yes, it does include things like the shape of the skull, the way the skeleton looks, eye shape, etc.

It's become somewhat forbidden to talk about these kinds of observations and that is a particularly common thing in some id pol circles, but I don't think there is in fact widespread agreement that it is wrong to do so. It represents a real difference in opinion and I would say one that is not divided along lines of ethnicity so much as politics.

There are of course deliberate caricatures of ethnic patterns that are in themselves meant to be reductive or nasty, which is a different thing, and people naturally want to stay away from that. But it does tend to get into the territory of not allowing for real observations about human communities, and usually when we tell people they are not allowed to notice the things they notice, it's a bad thing. It leads to a kind of inherent dishonesty in discourse. People notice the gap.

The thing is this board is full of women who find a lot of the language used in the name of genderism hurtful to them and an attack on their group.

But as they're also facing demands that their language is hurtful and an attack on the gender believers.

So what's are the possible outcomes here?

• Clancy not published, pro-gender stuff not published, GC stuff not published. General censorship nightmare.
• Clancy not published, pro-gender stuff published, GC stuff not published. One-sided Woke censorship nightmare.
• Clancy published, pro-gender stuff not published, GC stuff published. One-sided right-wing censorship nightmare.

The only good outcome is a truce:

• Clanchy published, pro-gender stuff published, GC stuff published. Then let's fight it out using liberal principles.

The more people call for stuff to be banned, the further we get away from the liberal truce, and the more danger all vulnerable groups, including women, are.

How much are you prepared to endanger the general principles protecting all people to punish individual bad people?

Every time someone like Clanchy is attacked like this, the foundations of our society are chipped away a little more. So sorry, I am going to reflexively support whoever the censors attack. The censors are the danger to society here, not her.

Her book is still being published! She has a new publisher. She has not been cancelled.

It's great she has a new publisher, but it's important to look at the general principle.

Should publishers be withdrawing their contracts, or even simply not renewing them, because their author has said something that is controversial?

Because that's what happened. It wasn't that they were unpopular. It wasn't that everyone agreed that she was beyond the pale. It was because some people didn't like what she wrote.

What's the knock on effect on that in publishing? And the context there is that we already are aware that there are huge issues in publishing right now if what you want to say does not toe certain lines. Especially if you are a woman. We already know that there are publishing houses where employees have tried to say that they will not work on certain books.

The weight of the current political moment is not on allowing people to say too much.

How much are you prepared to endanger the general principles protecting all people to punish individual bad people?

What general principles have been endangered here though? A publisher has ended a business relationship with an author. This is a commonplace daily occurrence for all sorts of reasons, it does nothing to threaten the fabric of our society. Nor does people criticising Clanchy's writing. People criticise books all the time, in fact I'd argue it's a general principle protecting our society that they are allowed to do so. All that's actually happened here is Clanchy received some criticism of her work which many people feel is justified, she didn't handle it well, and this ultimately affected her business relationship with her publisher. She's not being censored, she's still allowed to write books, and to seek another publisher. I think someone said in another comment she already has another publishing deal. She may even find her sales rise as people buy the book to see what the fuss is about. There are no consequences for the "general principles of society here", all that's happened is Clancy has received some personal and professional consequences for her own behaviour. Publishers, meanwhile, will continue to publish work and promote authors that they think are profitable to them, as they have always done.

Now more than at any other time in human history, not being published does not mean being censored. There are so many other ways to have your voice heard than traditional publishing.

I think the thing that worries me is that many - possibly all - of the phrases referenced as objectionable aren’t in the second edition. And yet this still wasn’t enough.

@SantaClawsServiette

I don't think the idea of anti-anything tropes means you can decontextualize the actual test. In a book about how we respond to people, if it's an honest book, we will see people's thinking. Whether we like the thinking or not, or like the origins of the thinking or not.

I'd also point out something that seems somewhat to be going under the radar here, which is that ethnicity can often be discerned by people's physical characteristics, and all the more so by those who spend lots of time interacting with those groups of people. There are patterns there that are real. And yes, it does include things like the shape of the skull, the way the skeleton looks, eye shape, etc.

It's become somewhat forbidden to talk about these kinds of observations and that is a particularly common thing in some id pol circles, but I don't think there is in fact widespread agreement that it is wrong to do so. It represents a real difference in opinion and I would say one that is not divided along lines of ethnicity so much as politics.

There are of course deliberate caricatures of ethnic patterns that are in themselves meant to be reductive or nasty, which is a different thing, and people naturally want to stay away from that. But it does tend to get into the territory of not allowing for real observations about human communities, and usually when we tell people they are not allowed to notice the things they notice, it's a bad thing. It leads to a kind of inherent dishonesty in discourse. People notice the gap.

Thank you for this, Santa. I have been musing on these themes all afternoon and you have put it very well.

She seems to be fighting back. Lots of articles in the press by her putting forward her side of the story now, which presumably her publisher wouldn't let her do before. So being cancelled by them is not all bad, in that at least it's enabled her to regain her voice.

As I said above, I'm Jewish, and didn't find what she wrote antisemitic. Compared to some lauded works which really are antisemitic and no-one seems to pick this up, I have tried to find antisemitic intent here and failed.

There are definitely some racist (incl antisemitic) works out there which probably do deserve cancelling for racism (incl antisemitism). But this isn't one.

In case anyone wants an example of one work that shows the literary world doesn't give a toss about racism/antisemitism, try reading the apparently entirely uncancelled Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. Now this was written in the 1930s, so maybe understandably isn't up to modern sensibilities.

BUT this wasn't a book which had been popular ever since the 1930s. This was a book which had been entirely forgotten and out of print, and then someone IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY decided it would be a good one to reprint, and some more people decided to make a major movie of it in 2008 (haven't seen the film so it's entirely possible the blatant racism and antisemitism is removed from the film version - I certainly hope so).

The ENTIRE PLOT OF THE BOOK hinges on the heroine's friend having to choose between 3 possible love interests - the 'D*go', the Jewish man and the 'Englishman' (the Jewish man is also English, from what I can remember, but of course not really, as far as the author and her presumed readers believe, because 'Jewish'). Who should she choose?

Well, durr, it's a no-brainer, of course, because - spoiler alert! - she can't choose the 'oily' D*go' or the Jew, 'because he's not one us', so of course she will have to go for the Englishman - who is one of us!

And yet the book gets rave reviews and precisely no-one, apart from me, apparently, seems to notice or care about the really vile, shocking and overt racism/antisemitism, which quite spoiled for me what was otherwise a pleasant, charming read.

So don't tell me that this all because publishers care about racism. They don't. Plenty of types of racism - and yes, that includes antisemitism, they are quite happy to turn a blind eye to.

Sam Missingham on twitter gives a good overview on why the Kate Clanchy situation went so badly for KC

I think the worst that can be said about Kate Clancy is that she was a bit white saviour-y and insensitive in her use of language. But having read the book before the controversy appeared, it was a clearly a well-meaning book, intended really for a white middle-class audience who don't actually know any working class or ethnic minority people to get an insight into how tough and different their lives are.

Now, in that sense, the book does really belong a bit in the 1950s, as it didn't seem to have occurred to her that her readers might also include some working class and ethnic minority people, who might not like being described as they come across to an old-fashioned, middle-class white woman.

But her intentions were so obviously laudable and her insights sometimes genuinely revealing, so it seems clear the fault was not with her, but with her (presumably also middle-class, white) publishers, who didn't spot that this was how it might come across to readers from other backgrounds. That's their job! They should have spotted this at the editorial stage. Too lazy - and unfair - to blame the writer alone.

Yes, xxyzz.

As I said up thread- she got the contract to write the book largely based on her Twitter feed, which centred poetry from ‘marginalised’ young poets.

Those are the credentials the publishers bought the book on.

So it’s not surprising everyone missed the problematic issues, because in a way the problematic issues were the basis of the book. She explores them, though - she centres her ‘problematic’ white woman viewpoint as the lens. It’s not unacknowledged. I expect that’s why she reacted so unwisely to the accusations of racism - because she was so sure that she was being explicitly anti-bias in pointing out the context.

That’s no excuse, though. It should have been better interrogated.

KC herself I think is being unfairly demonised, though. She’s the locus of an argument that’s divorced from what she wrote, despite people extensively quoting her.

I think it would have been useful to have had the further thoughts of the Orwell judges.

www.orwellfoundation.com/political-writing/some-kids-i-taught-and-what-they-taught-me/

The judges said:

"In this book, a brilliantly honest writer tackles a subject that ties so many people up in knots – education and how it is inexorably dominated by class. Yet this is the very opposite of a worthy lecture: Clanchy’s reflections on teaching and the stories of her students are moving, funny, full of love and offer sparkling insights into modern British society.”

2020 POLITICAL WRITING BOOK PRIZE JUDGES
Elif Shafak
Paul Laity
Robert Tombs
Stephanie Flanders (Chair)

@EishetChayil
I agree with your sentiments entirely.
The comments that Clanchy made about her young pupils were racist, anti semitic and well, to be honest also made her sound quite judgmental and bitchy about any girl who happens to be overweight/ working class.

Clearly as I'm an anti racist, slightly fat working class woman her books are not aimed at me.

I work in a hospital as an HCA- if I wrote a book describing the looks and eccentricities of patients (particularly in a racist unpleasant) manner), I would be out the door immediately. It would be hard to find similar employment ever again.

How does Clanchy as a teacher get away with being so unprofessional and inappropriate.

@SevenWaystoLeave
I cannot believe that the day after Holocaust Memorial Day posters on here are defending an author who has written about a boy in such an obviously anti semitic way.
In fact having read your post I was disgusted by Clanchy but certain other posters are now actively wanting to read her work?!