I've just finished the book and I am really angry. I think it is utterly, utterly shit behaviour on the part of her publisher to dump the entirety of her work after having published the book, for which they are after all responsible for editing etc in the first place, and I would think that even if the book was an utter shitshow. But it isn't. It is humane, thoughtful, humble and truthful.
I understand why people resented some of the descriptions. Taken out of context they could sound offensive. But they are, in almost every case, presented in a context where she is explicitly examining her assumptions and prejudices. The 'narrow skull' of the Somali boy, for example, is mentioned in a chapter about the perception of race and ethnicity based on physical characteristics: it is deeply relevant to the boy's story whether he 'looks Kenyan' or 'looks Somali' - and those are ideas which she deliberately interrogates, positioning herself as painfully ignorant. The chapter about 'fatness' may be 'fatphobic', but it is about the gaze of a privileged observer and how that plays out - how privilege translates across the whole spectrum of education and money and ease of life, and what bodies demonstrate and do in that context. (It's like the way that I, as a feminist, would be enraged by being described as 'flat-chested' by a random man, while a breastfeeding consultant writing about her experience of helping me breastfeed would have every right to call me that - because it's not only true, it's entirely relevant.)
Clanchy is writing truthfully about how injustice is reinforced by unconscious bias, and trying to make that conscious. She says: 'I still suppose that [...] most people are prejudiced; that I am, that prejudice occurs in the reading of poetry as well as everything else. I also think that if you acknowledge it, and try to set it aside, you can see more.' That should be the tagline of the book, FFS. Her crime appears to be that she speaks as honestly as she can about what prejudices she brings to the table. Does it matter that she is writing about the shifts in her perception which make her, not perfect, but clearer-sighted? No, apparently she should be punished, not only for being racist but for talking about how racism works, even in the best-intentioned people. So what do you do, if you are privileged, and know you are, and you're trying to be humane and human and open about that? Nothing. You can't win. Shut up.
I get that people are furious about racism and injustice. They're right to be. But if your answer to oppression is to want to reverse the roles completely, then you're part of the problem. (And I say that as an equally furious feminist.) If you silence anyone privileged who dares to address how the problem looks from 'their side', then what are you left with? Silence, and no progress at all. Arabella has it right: you don't get writing that's free from racism, you get writing that is careful not to be accused of racism : and what that means is that the dominant voices are so scared to include anything 'outside their lived experience' that they play it safe, and stick with writing about people who look exactly like they do, and our discourse gets even less diverse.
You cannot solve a problem unless you can see the problem. Censoring people for trying, as best they can, to anatomise the problem, is about as counter-productive as you can get. Telling the truth - unvarnished, ugly, "problematic" - is the first step on the path to social justice. It is also the only rule of good art.
Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth.