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

I think it’s because Picador apologised but Kate Clanchy is still banging the drum and seems unrepentant.

Adam Kay's This is Going To Hurt is quite viciously misogynistic in my view in several passages. Of course that is, rather than career-ending, turned into a successful TV and lauded TV series (where a brown woman co-protagonist is created that didn't exist in the book)

What did they apologise for?

She's visible. The publishers are behind the scenes and it's harder to find out who the actual people are who made the decisions. They might even turn out to be male. The witch burners need a witch to burn.

How many men have been cancelled like this compared to women?

This is what they said at the time:

"We have been listening to the responses to what we said about Kate Clanchy’s Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me and we want to apologise profoundly for the hurt we have caused, the emotional anguish experienced by many of you who took the time to engage with the text, and to hold us to account.
“We realise our response was too slow. We vigorously condemn the despicable online bullying of many of those who have spoken out. This has no place in our community.
“We understand that readers wish to know specifically what will be done about the book, we’re actively working on this now and we will communicate this as soon as possible."

What fecking 'community'?

Some of his output is utterly horrific.

But these 'responses' seem to be limited to a tiny number of people with an axe to grind on social media. Overall, reviews seem to have been positive. It won the Orwell prize.

Yeah it was all very overheated and intense at the time. I think they had a lot of staff who were upset too.

this was during 2021, at that point where no one was thinking clearly from staying indoors for too long and things online seemed more real than they actually were.

I didn't read Adam Kay's book but I watched the first episode of This is Going to Hurt and I didn't want to watch any more.
I like Ben Wishaw (Paddington Bear). And I like Jarvis Cocker who did the music but I didn't want to continue after the doctor deliberately sewed up a woman wrong who had a dolphin tattoo which he ruins and he laughed about it. His malpractice was justified because the patient was racist.

Sexism / misogyny is fine but perceived racism or transphobia ends your career.

Why was it ok for the slightly fictional / dramatised version of Adam Kay to be spiteful but not ok for the slightly fictional version of Kate Clanchy to sometimes give judgemental descriptions of composite characters (in the introduction to the memoir she says children's identities were protected, names were changed, no individuals should have been identifiable).

I think this is part of the problem, separating reality from fiction especially with memoirs where we expect them to be non fiction but really they're a mix like Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit which was originally marketed as a fictional novel but is a memoir / semi autobiographical.

When I hear Kate Clanchy talk about the Kate in her memoir it's clear in her mind that the written Kate is a fictionalised or dramatised version of herself but we the reader (or podcast listener) don't know the real Kate from the fictional Kate so how are we able to compare?

I have now listened to the whole 'Anatomy of a Cancellation' and in my opinion Monisha Rajesh was let off lightly. She was asked why she called Kate "KKKlanchy" and Rajesh said she felt attacked by Kate! Who didn't call her any names.
Rajesh never apologised and played the victim when she was the bully.

This article might explain some of her twitter outbursts. She says she raged during lockdown and needed anger management for postnatal 'depression'. It must have been quite scary for her kids to witness. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/aug/31/moment-changed-me-smashed-toddlers-toy-kitchen-smithereens-knew-i-needed-help

Rajesh mentions being bullied as a kid and having abusive teachers and I feel her whole response to Kate's book has been Rajesh projecting her experiences onto Kate. Kate is now viewed as the abusive teacher Rajesh had and she is again the child experiencing racism. To which I can only suggest you need more therapy Monisha rather than continue the cycle of abuse.

Victoria Smith has pitched in

Kids, critics and the courage of Kate Clanchy | Victoria Smith | The Critic Magazine https://share.google/QQsVq721dzFizRLhR

I've just started listening to Anatomy of a Cancellation. I like the Rashomon framing.

Never underestimate how terrified senior leaders in publishing can be of the tiniest amount of online criticism regarding the issues of the day. They are gibbering in fear much of the time. I’ve seen it at my workplace and frankly it was embarrassing.

I read this with horror as it played out. I hadn't read Clanchy's book, but I followed her on twitter and loved the poetry that she promoted.

It seems to me that women in book publishing (which I would love to be a part of one day, which is now somewhat a worry) are falling over one another to display their 'kindness' in a weird format that involves pointing out what other women have done wrong.

Clanchy is not perfect, but no one is. Yet in these kindness wars there's no room for nuance and it annoys the hell out of me. If some of her language could've been better, the publisher had a chance to pick it up. It seems to me that on balance she was a fantastic teacher for those children and did not deserve to be repeatedly ripped apart.

But publishing would rather eat itself than stand up for someone who is not perfect.

She does not seem well at all. I hope she seeks and finds suitable support.

Meanwhile, publishing should reflect on the fact it has enabled and supported such vicious and disproportionate attacks. Speaks of a deeply unhealthy culture.

Many people like to use social media to demonstrate what good people they are, simply by virtue of saying the currently approved line about refugees or immigrants or any other topic. Far fewer people actually use their lives to make a difference to others, Kate Clanchy has spent years of her life making sure that refugees and other disadvantaged groups have a chance at a better life. Why not judge her on that rather than the things she said?

Well yes, exactly. She has improved the lives of her students - they have said so. She’s made a difference and I’d rather judge her on that than her use of almond eyes (which the student used herself).

Quite. Did her detractors actually listen to the refugee students she has helped or are they the wrong type of brown/Jewish people whose voices can be ignored?

’rumour’? ‘Hearsay’?? She literally wrote a creepy book about children, was pulled up on specific passages, then denied that they were in the book. Despite being ‘cancelled’ she continued to work and be published. Any other teacher would not be working in schools now - her attitude to young people is not suited to teaching in the modern age and to me brought to mind that of a colonial missionary or similar.

Because it’s so important to describe children’s skulls and argue with them about their own heritage - keep doing the great work, Kate! We really need to know all about those skulls.

How writing a poem a chance at a better life? Patronising, much? It all whacks of her using vulnerable young folk for her own self aggrandisement

I could not agree more. These are children she is writing about so callously. It turned my stomach.

Listen to anatomy of a scandal podcast, you might have a different opinion. Her book is extremely othering of non white and non British children. She hasn’t taken any feedback on board. I do agree with one of her critics, who also said no hum an is built to withstand the amount of vitriolic abuse that is given on social media.

Don’t buy or read her books then.

To be able to destroy with a good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behaviour 'righteous indignation' -- this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.

You’re missing the point - this is someone dealing with children in her care. She is debating with a boy who maintains that his family are not Jewish, yet Kate knows better, he has a particular nose and colouring so he must be. Why is she talking about this with a pupil, let alone in front of his peers, why does she need to keep pursuing it? Has she even had any teacher training? Nope, she just made up a role for herself in the school and pursued newly grieving, vulnerable children to write about their deceased siblings - despite the children’s form tutor telling her to back off three times, she just has to get that bloody poem out of that child. Absolutely weird.