Times Interview with Kate Clanchy - shared article in post

[NorthSouthEast]

This is a sobering, thoughtful, harrowing, blood-boiling read. What Kate Clanchy went through 😡. I’ve put this in FWR as it’s yet another story of a woman being cancelled on the basis of rumour, supposition and hearsay with self-righteous people scrambling to jump on the “be kind” wagon as it rolls another human being and their career into the mud.

Kate Clanchy: I was cancelled. It made me contemplate suicide

www.thetimes.com/article/7681d5ec-3773-4b36-ab95-e4ab409d7899?shareToken=e76def471fd13ded750d7295fd554675

Yes, this is a very strange, and I think rather disturbing, development.

It reminds me of the rule that we are not supposed to mention that we know people's real sex, because it's somehow impolite.

The fact that ethnic physical characteristics exist is somehow now taboo as well. Although not usually among the group being described, at least in my experience. We all see that they exist, but we are supposed to pretend we don't.

I have wondered in the past if some people actually don't recognise patterns adequately to notice, but I have come to the conclusion that, largely, they do, they just lie about it.

Why is it a "horror" to say someone looks like they have an Ashkenazi nose? Only if you believe that it's an insult to be Jewish or look Jewish.

And Jewish people are having nose jobs (Jewish Chronicle) mainly young women. So people can't look diverse and we can't describe diversity? What a horrible world to live in. https://www.thejc.com/news/the-complex-history-of-jews-nose-jobs-and-antisemitism-cygdnrx2

As for Clanchy's other descriptions of children she quoted the children's descriptions of themselves from their own poetry.

From The Times article "She used the phrase “almond eyes”, for example, but did so because it was a term she had learnt was used by the Hazara people of Afghanistan as an “important political term and identifier” of their ethnic group. One of her old pupils had even written a poem that included the line, “In Iran where they offend because of their almond-shaped eyes.” Similarly, a pupil wrote in a poem that “the scorching sun melts my chocolate face”. "

https://www.thetimes.com/article/7681d5ec-3773-4b36-ab95-e4ab409d7899?shareToken=e76def471fd13ded750d7295fd554675

If you or those 3 twitter bullies are offended by what children wrote about themselves that doesn't make Clanchy's work offensive or her the problem.

It is a horror because 80 years earlier, a little further east, boys, even with no known Jewish ancestry, were murdered because members of their countries' establishment measured their noses and chose them for death on that basis.

That mindset, categorising humans, and human worth, on the basis of certain physical characteristics, is dangerous. She wasn't writing novels. She wasn't writing as an insider. She was writing about children in specific identifiable schools as though she was a naturalist describing exotic species. A very colonialist mindset - like those Belgian zoos that exhibited humans.

Anyhow, Clanchy's style, nice lady being benevolent to the deserving poor, reminds me of Camila Batmandelidjh in the way she was briefly lionised by the London-centric media. Different personal presentation, different approach, provoking a similar sense of distaste.

Another paragraph from that article.

I remember studying English for my A-levels, when we read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I was the only Hazara in the class, and I felt extremely uncomfortable at some of Hosseini’s descriptions of the Hazaras. Kate’s use of “almond eyes” is in no way the same. People have been very quick to criticise her because she is a white, privileged writer. Hosseini is a person of colour and an Afghan; he has not been questioned at all. I think this is hypocrisy.

Interesting that no one is demanding that Hosseini be cancelled. I'm obviously not suggesting that he should be.

Clanchy's book was deeply unpleasant. I'm not sure if it should have been pulled but I do think most decent people would have recoiled and avoided. It didn't even have literary merit to commend it. I think people sometimes like to be contrary or put being a free speech absolutist over everything, maybe there's even a touch of racism in the mix for some. Lots of books are awful, this was no different so I have no idea what makes it special enough to defend.

As for cancel culture, it's a bit rich for her to play the victim when she so viciously hounded a woman for leaving a bad review. I have an extremely limited amount of sympathy for anyone who is hoist by their own petard.

Quick reminder than Kate Clanchy is running poetry workshops for Afghan girls that she shares on her X account:

x.com/KateClanchy1/status/1985401559207862421

...she ... viciously hounded a woman for leaving a bad review.

What did she do?

Tried to track down the woman's employer and get her fired. For leaving a critical review. Way to flex your privilege and status.

How do you know about this?

I can't find any links to this. Can you supply?

Because it was all written about extensively at the time. Her victim was really scared. Fortunately Clanchy didn't get away with it. As someone said upthread, Streisand affect.

Not without going back to X more than four years ago. I don't know whether Goodreads itself would retain any evidence. KC's behaviour was deeply unedifying - very 'do you know who I am?'.

As for cancel culture, it's a bit rich for her to play the victim when she so viciously hounded a woman for leaving a bad review. I have an extremely limited amount of sympathy for anyone who is hoist by their own petard.
How did she 'viciously' do this?
Where was it written about? Another twitter mob? Doesn't an author have a right to reply?

No doubt if she didn't make the posts that appeared to come from her, the detective she hired will be able demonstrate that in the radio series dedicated to her. So far her record on telling the truth wrt the matter is poor.

If anyone has a Goodreads account, it's worth looking the book up and reading the resulting reviews. The original review that started the controversy is still there. Some really helpful reviewers have provided timelines. I recommend 'Cecily''s review as she has tried to provide a balanced appraisal of the book as well as a timeline of the resulting controversy.

Clanchy's comments have been removed (I imagine her publisher insisted on that at the time).

The book wasn't just criticised for comments on race, classism and ableism are also in the mix and several of her critics were absolutely hounded off social media.

I didn't realise Goodreads provided space for a twitter like mob to gather. I do think ignoring them is the best policy because they obviously don't want a conversation just submission.

Thanks, that's helpful and illuminating.

Totally. Assuming you're describing Clanchy and her support staff. Goodreads initially appeared to be a space for honest reviews, but clearly at least one author (and I suspect also her publisher, at that stage) did not want that to happen - hence the hounding.

Separate from Clanchy, Goodreads isn’t a space for honest reviews and there have been plenty of purposefully hostile reviews left (say, for gender critical books) designed to bring an author down. Goodreads is a huge problem for publishing. Book bloggers can cause huge problems especially since the Society of Authors decided to class them as authors and allow them to join, causing no end of problems.

The reason the Clanchy story matters to women is because it mirrors so much of what happens within the book industry to gender critical authors. For example, when Rachel Rooney did a SAR for her publisher, as in this case, her publisher redacted every word that wasn’t her name. Every. Single. Word. That also involved a badly behaved publicist.

Rachel and other writers, especially in children’s publishing, have faced huge hostility and bullying from other writers as with this case (and sometimes involving the same women, who are, surprise surprise, TRAs). They have faced hostility from within their publisher.

Whether you like KC and/or her book isn’t the key point. It’s how her publisher and the industry behaved that matters.

Agree. I’ve been writing fiction since 2007 and haven’t looked at GRs for at least eight years as it can be unpleasant to say the least.

KC's book, and the racist, classist world view it touted were the key issues for me. I daresay the publisher could have found other equally unpleasant authors embedded in the establishment if they wanted, but this was the one that I read and was shocked by, as, clearly, were others. If some of the people shocked by the book held other views I would disagree with, that is not relevant.

Clanchy's publicity machine trying to suppress evidence of valid criticism was the problem.

The omnicause should not rule our attitudes to anything. Or everything.

The mindset behind that may be a clue to what is so wrong with the publishing industry.

What is currently wrong with publishing is that it has forgotten that the bedrocks of publishing are freedom of expression, a plurality of voices, freedom of speech and diverse options. The right to not offend someone isn’t a bedrock, but has become the overarching position.

If you aren’t interested in those bedrocks then publishing isn’t for you. The sooner all the people who don’t like that bugger off out of publishing, the better.

In the meantime, why not enjoy some of the poetry Kate is sharing? The awful racist, classist woman using her platform to elevate the voices of the most disadvantaged girls in the world.

The poetry may or may not be good, but for me it is fatally contaminated, so no thank you.

Clanchy isn't the victim here though. She was the first to engage in attack just because she was angry about a fair review. This whitewash of her behaviour is awful.

I'm in publishing and I'm aware that this is retraumatising for all involved.

Rather than continue to relitigate the past, could we try to redirect this discussion towards a future scenario? i.e.:

• What should a publisher do, in a future scenario?
• What should the Society of Authors do, in a future scenario?
• What should the author(s) in question do?