How trans activists in publishing hijacked a children's book competition to pursue a personal vendetta

[PurgatoryOfPotholes]

The Phoenix Book Award is an initiative to encourage reading amongst children of the borough of Lambeth, London, launched in 2007. Back in 2017, it described itself as This exciting South London based Book Prize targets Year 5, 6, 7 and 8 pupils in Lambeth, encouraging them to read through the transition years. Phoenix is a unique book prize as students are involved in every stage of the award; from picking the shortlist, to shadowing the award and then finally voting for their favourite. It is open to all schools in the Lambeth area.

This year it's "judged by children from Years 6, 7 & 8 in Lambeth."

Children at participating schools read the books from a long-list (a very long list: as many as 32 books!) over a period of months, and whittle it down to from there. It sounds like an absolutely amazing concept for generating enthusiasm about reading.

Let's hear from the adults who do the paperwork for it:
After a break due to the pandemic we are delighted to announce that the Lambeth #PhoenixBookAward is returning for 2022!

This year, children were asked to nominate books that helped them get through lockdown. The result is a fantastic, diverse, and hugely competetive shortlist.

twitter.com/LambethPhoenix/status/1496789801718059011?s=20&t=F1f0NO5YFo712FQS40-3-w

Sounds lovely, right?

Yesterday, the twitter account for the prize posted the shortlist:

Boy in the Tower by Polly Ho-Yen
When Life Gives You Mangoes by Kereen Getten
The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell
The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf

twitter.com/LambethPhoenix/status/1496791630476722184?s=20&t=aQmwjEpxiId-FatE21miAw

(Now another round of voting begins, and we'll know the winner on the 12th May 2022!)

This was accompanied by a little graphic showing the shortlist.

And that's where this wonderful heartwarming story of children enjoying reading went wrong.

One author's publishing agent took issue with the children of Lambeth having shortlisted another author with whom she disagreed, and decided to falsify that graphic to remove any record that Onjali Raúf and her book The Boy at the Back of the Class had been shortlisted by the children of Lambeth. Then she tweeted her false version from the business twitter of the literary agency she runs, for other people to unknowingly circulate.

You're probably wondering how we can know this. Well, we know, because she boasted about doing exactly that from her personal twitter account.

Transcript for those using a screenreader

Tweet 1 from Agent: Am I petty enough and procrastinating enough to amend a shortlist image to take out the shortlisted terf. Probably.

Tweet 2 from Agent: Turns out I am.

If you go here, you can read the incredible thread from Gillian Philip explaining this mess in more detail. Gillian's the one who explained events in the first place.

twitter.com/Gillian_Philip/status/1496907435830919172?s=20&t=aQmwjEpxiId-FatE21miAw

If you are struggling to view twitter threads without an account, go here. Graham Linehan has made a version of the thread that you can scroll through without a twitter account.
grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/there-will-always-be-women-who-hate?utm_source=url

Here are some other things you should know: Onjali Raúf founded an organisation that campaigns to end modern slavery and trafficking. makingherstory.org.uk/contact/

She also founded O's Refugee Aid Team which supports refugees in Calais; in fact, 50% of the royalties from that shortlisted book, The Boy at the Back of the Class go to their projects to support refugees! Yep, this is the same book that agent is trying to suppress positive publicity for.

www.osrefugeeaidteam.org/

This is a thread of some of the books Onjali Raúf has published: twitter.com/Dora_Callisto/status/1496988662806032386?s=20&t=aQmwjEpxiId-FatE21miAw which is where I found out that children are involved in the awards process.

At this point, I can only echo Dora's thread and ask, how do you think you'd feel if you were a child who'd nominated The Boy at the Back of the Class as one of the "books that helped [you] get through lockdown"? How would you feel to find out that another shortlisted nominee's agent had edited your nomination out?

It's despicable behaviour.

Picture from the site for O's Refugee Aid Team.

www.osrefugeeaidteam.org/

That’s me buying that book for my youngest, and a copy for her school too.

My son bought this book with his own money.

Thank goodness my son's just been reading this as a class book.

I think the school are joining a refugee program.

That tra person is disgusting.

Shocking! I see accounts are now locked.

That Alice woman is very silly

Disgusting behavior and then to lol about it. There’s low and there’s this.

Gillian’s last tweet in that thread is so on point

twitter.com/Gillian_Philip/status/1496911547536658433

So, yes: a privileged middle class white woman decided, quite deliberately, to erase a Muslim woman who works to end human trafficking and slavery.

And she thinks she’s the good guy.

/ends

Wow, that is just disturbing that someone thinks they're being the good guy erasing a Muslim woman and a book about child refugees. This is actually sat in my basket of books for DS, so it'll be making its way to checkout soon.

Both of my dc loved The Boy at the Back of the Class and their y4 teacher recommended it to every pupil during lockdown.

This is just mind boggling behaviour.

Imagine having a mindset that not only thinks this is acceptable but boasts about it? Openly intimidating a Muslim women, trashing her reputation.
The epitome of cancel culture. What a vile thing to do.

There’s such an edge to this particular literal erasure of a woman, too.

It’s all “amplify BIPOC feminist voices” - until they diverge from the 3rd wave model wherein “intersectional feminism” = “trans women are the most oppressed in any & all contexts & must be centred at all times”. Should they have the utter audacity to do this, responding by going scorched Earth (& any & all resultant collateral damage) is not just acceptable but to be expected. (And then one should continue to insist TERFs are all white & middle-class, naturally.)

The apparent inability* to consider that perhaps Onjali’s book helped some of those children get through lockdown because they’re refugees & circulating a “petty” altered shortlist tells those children that they’re the unwelcome ones, not Raúf, is quite staggering. To characterise their behaviour as “petty” is alarming too - it is spiteful, it is vicious, it is cruel, it is calculating, it is wildly unprofessional. It has also been done with the clear expectation of being cheered on (though at least that doesn’t seem to have worked out this time).

Onjali & Making Herstory get slammed on the regular for their TERFdom (ie knowing there are differences between men & women [however they might choose to identify] & that the latter need their own spaces) - it must be absolutely exhausting. She keeps going though, even through being really unwell with endometriosis. A TERF in body as in mind clearly. I have only met her once, it was right as Making Herstory was getting started, and she was so incredibly passionate & enthusiastic about it - as well as being friendly, engaging, & clearly very clever.

Also hope that this utter idiocy doesn’t endanger the awards themselves, which are, of course, designed to improve the literacy rates in Lambeth & keep children reading as they move from primary to secondary & no longer have “reading books”. Lambeth is the 9th most deprived London Borough & 44th most deprived in the country, with some pockets (see link) of far more deprivation than others. The demography of Lambeth (again, see link) means you have the combination of ESOL households in areas ranked as in the most deprived quintile of the IMD that typically results in children needing additional assistance with their reading [in English].

Of course, Alice Sutherland-Hawes was educated at Downe House - yes, the school the Duchess of Cambridge went to - & did a degree she describes as “useless” so I don’t think she’s the first idea of what the lives of the children involved are like. While a student on a scholarship might manage to crash & burn & end up at University of Wales Newport via clearing; they would not have done only 4 AS Levels & 3 A Levels.** Unlike the children whose competition she has shown such disregard for, Alice had an expensive education & the associated privilege that purchases. Alice is good enough to admit she had an easy route into becoming a literary agent, but if she realises just how easy (as in, it’s not simply that she was lucky that happened but that that route simply does not exist for others - well, not unless they are similarly privileged) she doesn’t express that. It’s just all a bit “oh I’m so quirky & my life is like a film”.

So it’s not just ANY white woman doing the punching down. It’s a very VERY privileged one.

Utterly reprehensible from start to finish; & she thoroughly deserves to suffer reputational damage for being so utterly unprofessional. How could any author trust her to represent them when she pulls stunts like this?

• Better that it’s an inability than that someone is being so deliberately cruel to incredibly vulnerable children, surely? ** All information from Public Linked-In page.

So, yes: a privileged middle class white woman decided, quite deliberately, to erase a Muslim woman who works to end human trafficking and slavery

And she thinks she’s the good guy

This sums it up perfectly. Are people really that lacking in self-awareness??

I had never heard of Onjali Raúf until this Twitter spat, she looks like a very accomplished woman, working for very worthy causes, I will be ordering her book for my 2 DC.

Here is Onjali Rauf speaking at WPUK. This was the Brighton Labour conference event from 2019, so you can here the crazed hate mob outside hammering on the windows throughout her speech.

Even aside from the issue, the basic behaviour here makes clear which side I want to be on.

I just knocked up a partial transcript.

As a woman of faith, whose God, may I please remind everyone, is genderless, I have zero problems with anyone who is anything other than me. if you're a man who feels more comfortable in stepping out of the socially-constructed he-man-esque box that is "man" to make a home in a socially-constructed box of "woman" then go for it. I have absolutely no problem with that.

But please, please, please, don't do so to invade a space that women are still fighting for. [applause] Feel free to create your own space - a third space, a fourth space, a seventh space. One in which caters for you and your unique experiences and needs, because those won't be shared by us either. Or better yet take, that space from the men -they've got loads! [laughter + applause]

And please don't pretend that my own experiences of transforming from a girl to woman, and all the millions of tiny hurts and digs and pains and prejudices and push backs that we as women suffer daily as a result of being those two words - girl or woman - can be shared by you either, because you were born with certain privileges.

Whether it's toilets or changing rooms, specialist services in a refuge, school toilets or prison cells, it's vital that woman's uniqueness, lives and wants be as respected as you want your uniqueness, lives and wants to be respected.

As someone working with women fleeing domestic violence and wars, human trafficking rings, childhood sexual abuse and million-and-one other experiences of male-inflicted violence in-between, our underfunded drastically-reducing single-sex spaces are literally our last vestiges of safety.

For women who have been literally punched, beaten, raped and broken at every possible level you can possibly conceive, to be forced to accept a former man as part of the healing process will, to put it bluntly, lead to further trauma or worse still a distrust of the services that were placed there to help them in the first place. [applause]

I've just bought her book . Alice is despicable.

Alice is despicable.

And illiterate.

This is pretty shocking - also that another author happily cheered her on. And people say cancel culture doesn't exist.

Thank you purgatory for starting this thread. What an amazing woman Onjali is.

And thank you necessary for the transcript.

“Am I petty and procrastinating enough?””

No I think what you mean is “am I enough of a cunt?” to deliberately target a Muslim woman writing about child refugees

Just breathtakingly awful behaviour from a deeply privileged white woman lacking in even the tiniest level of self awareness

Still I expect it went down a storm in the hyper we’re sooo woke literary circles she moves in

I’m in this industry and have been following this. It’s so telling of how this ideology convinces people they are right and morally superior on the basis of no evidence, that someone as insignificant as Alice can not only do this to the great and garlanded Onjali Rauf, but publicly snigger and invite an audience for her bullying. How deluded can you get. And the author egging her on. Nastily, childish school bullies.

I hope her author’s book gets withdrawn from the shortlist over this. It’s totally not on.

Though OP if anyone thinks children’s publishing is heartwarming and cosy, it’s not. It’s dog-eat-dog!

Still it’s breathtakingly appalling behaviour like this that helps to draw back the curtain. Gender ideology in general uses “intersectionality” as a shield and is supposedly all over BLM, but it’s only to serve the purposes of trying to seize the moral high ground. Actually it doesn’t give a crap about anyone who’s dealing with actual oppression, because it’s all about trying to grab the “most oppressed” prize from them. And it’s privileged people who are the worst for this because they want to feel morally pure instead of feeling bad for being white, rich and western.

Alice S-H lays this all out on a plate. I hope more people see it and wake up.

This is despicable. I'm on the fringes of the industry and it's setting up BIPOC initiatives left right and centre. Get this shows how shallow it all is.

Onjali Raif has been targeted before, when she was chosen for something by Booktrust. A bunch of children’s authors were openly boasting on twitter about how they were trying to get Booktrust to fire her.

There was also some kind of fall out because a children’s author who wasn’t even GC, but had congratulated Rauf or liked one of her tweets or similar was then hounded off twitter.

Horrible behaviour.

I can’t believe the author joined in, it’s repulsive behaviour and she should be removed from the shortlist.
Bullies shouldn’t get awards, otherwise what does that teach the children?

Can we not use the term bipoc please? This is the U.K., not the US

I'm not in the UK