How the wrong language can destroy an author: Griselda Heppel makes a plea against cancellation.
I have just ordered a copy of Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me. I fear that my open admission of this is enough to render me the target of social media hatred.
Until very recently, Kate Clanchy had a solid gold reputation as an extraordinarily gifted English teacher, particularly in the area of creative writing and particularly among young people from a wide variety of ethnic groups and disadvantaged backgrounds. Her pupils flourished under her inspiring tutelage, writing poems of an originality and sophistication way beyond their years, and many have since gone on to successful careers as poets as adults. In this memoir, Clanchy looks back on 30 years of a job she clearly loved and excelled in, writing with such power and conviction that the book won the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Writing.
Which is why I’ve just ordered a copy while I still can. Whatever its defects – bearing in mind how sensitivity to inappropriate language has heightened in the last couple of years – the overall tenor of Clanchy’s memoir seems, from all the glowing reviews, overwhelmingly celebratory and supportive of the young people who enliven its pages. To cancel this account of their personal and literary achievements would be a huge loss both for them and for us.
I still can’t make out why Clanchy denied she’d written the phrases she was attacked for, instead of arguing that some, at least, (like ‘almond-shaped eyes’ above) have a long poetic tradition in the particular culture she applied it to. Better to have done that than deny what could – and was – so easily proved against her.
Until very recently, Kate Clanchy had a solid gold reputation as an extraordinarily gifted English teacher, particularly in the area of creative writing and particularly among young people from a wide variety of ethnic groups and disadvantaged backgrounds. Her pupils flourished under her inspiring tutelage, writing poems of an originality and sophistication way beyond their years, and many have since gone on to successful careers as poets as adults. In this memoir, Clanchy looks back on 30 years of a job she clearly loved and excelled in, writing with such power and conviction that the book won the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Writing.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, things went wrong. Badly wrong. A scathing review of the book on Goodreads attracted other negative attacks. Clanchy was accused of using racist stereotypes (‘chocolate coloured’, ‘almond-shaped eyes’) to describe children from different ethnic backgrounds, of not disguising individuals enough and therefore not protecting them, of blatant profiteering by writing this memoir on the backs of the pupils she taught, just to make money etc etc The furore seemed to come out of nowhere and felt hard to credit; if these criticisms were well-founded, how on earth did Clanchy’s publishers miss them, let alone the judges of the Orwell prize? It looked as if the reviews were prompted by malice from people for some reason out to destroy the author.
And that was where the author herself made a big mistake. She called for help on Twitter, denying she had used any of the terms she was accused of, eliciting much sympathy… until pages of the book started appearing online, scattered with all the epithets her critics so deplored. She was caught, fair and square, in a mess far more horrible than if she’d owned up straight away. Grovelling apologies, from both Clanchy and Picador, her publishers, combined with a promise to rewrite future editions to remove the offending areas, have not satisfied the huge swathes of the morally outraged, and it looks quite possible to me that the terrified publishers will simply let a prize-winning, best-selling and – judging by the hundreds of 5 star reviews – moving and inspiring book go out of print.
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| Hazara girl Image by Shamsheri, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
If you doubt this, just look at the way some of Clanchy’s former pupils have rallied to her support, in particular ‘almond-eyed’ Shukria Rezaei, a member of the Hazara people of Afghanistan, who, as a minority ethnic group, are a target for persecution by the Taliban. 'My almond-shaped eyes,' says Rezaei, ‘are at the core of my Hazara identity.... It is a term that I have often used in my own poems ' (My favourite teacher Kate described me beautifully, The Sunday Times, 15th August 2021).
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| Is this what we want? |
But I am keen to read the book myself and make up my own mind – a freedom that looks increasingly under threat as publishers find themselves under pressure to withdraw controversial books.
Is that what we really want?
OUT NOW
by Griselda Heppel, author of
Comments
I have looked at the extracts highlighted in the criticism (like you I have not read the book myself) but they do not look particularly racist to me. In 'Girl, Woman, Other Bernadine Evaristo' writes fictionally about how Winsome tried hard not to stare at Lennox's 'chocolatey skin that was so lickable'. I pointed this out on Twitter but of course no reply. I wouldn't mind being called 'Liverpool Pete' as like 'African John' (criticised) it's where I am from.
She and her publishers probably did handle it badly but I do feel immensely sorry for what has happened. If anyone wants to know about racism they need look no further than the current drama about Stephen Lawrence on ITV.
So thanks again and apologies for the rant.
As I recall, she had established that the objection to "almond-shaped eyes" and "chocolate-coloured skin" was the food references, which are now being taken to imply that that the writer wants to _eat_ the previously enslaved ethnic people. This is of course highly objectionable. Expressions such as "strawberry blonde" and "peaches and cream complexion", which would tend to be applied to people with paler skins, are not subject to this criticism.
The whole thing is simultaneously ludicrous and terrifying. I'm not sure I want to be published any more.
My mother sometimes describes a particularly gorgeous baby/toddler as 'eatable'. Doesn't means she wants to eat him/her! We often use food images in writing to denote something lovely and attractive. I'm sure it never occurred to Homer to actually drink the 'wine-dark sea'.
Writing is more and more a minefield. Bob, you have a point when you say you don't want to be published anymore.