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    Kate Clanchy

    is a poet and teacher of English who often posts her students poems on social media to some acclaim.

    She has written a book about her students and her work in which there are a number of ways of writing about her pupils' ethnicities or disabilities which a number of writers have objected to, She references for example the shape of their skulls, she first objected, and a number of other prominent writers (like Philip Pullman jumped to her defence )

    The book has now been rewritten and reissued. The writers (largely of colour) who criticised her have taken quite a lot of shit on social media. And now inevitably Sarah Ditum <puke> has written a pice about cancel culture for the Times.

    his thread sums it up quite well

    https://twitter.com/jntod/status/1425786323407937542?s=20

    #2
    To be fair to Pullman, he's apologised and said he was wrong.

    (I sort of have a dog in this fight - he used to be my English teacher and is a fairly good friend of a number of people I know in Oxford, and has always seemed to be incredibly decent unlike some other mouthily atheist fiction writers of his generation, so I want him to not turn out to be a Cancel Culture Is Out To Get Us arse)

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      #3
      Philip Hensher has been particularly scathing on this case:

      https://twitter.com/PhilipHensher/status/1425794217025093633

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        #4
        Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
        To be fair to Pullman, he's apologised and said he was wrong.

        (I sort of have a dog in this fight - he used to be my English teacher and is a fairly good friend of a number of people I know in Oxford, and has always seemed to be incredibly decent unlike some other mouthily atheist fiction writers of his generation, so I want him to not turn out to be a Cancel Culture Is Out To Get Us arse)
        From what I've seen it's not really an apology.

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          #5
          https://twitter.com/DiLeed/status/1425806089732464641?s=19

          Diane Leedham has consistently posted well on this topic.

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            #6
            https://twitter.com/FiaMilone/status/1425795306810220546?s=19

            One tweet on Pullman.

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              #7
              All Philip Pullman's apologised for is replying to a tweet about something completely different, thinking it was about the Clanchy book, because he was so eager to compare three women of colour to the Taliban. He quite pointedly hasn't actually apologised to those women for making said comparison, although he did apologise for his 'intemperate language'. (I've just gone to his Twitter and read his 'apology' for about the fifth time today to make sure I wasn't misremembering.) He's said some really outrageous things over the last week and barely acknowledged the harm or offence that he's caused. SB, I'm afraid he's very much outed himself as one of the 'cancel culture' lot.

              I've been following this pretty much since it started, which (to give a bit more detail than Nef's OP – hope you don't mind, Nef) was when Clanchy tweeted to Goodreads asking them to remove reviews she claimed included made-up quotes from the book which were being posted with an aim to making her look racist. Various white writers, with Pullman most prominent among them – he's quoted on the front cover of the book saying how wonderful it is, in case anyone's wondering what his horse is in this race – supported her: it was horrible that people could make this stuff up and it just stuck, when anyone who'd actually read the book could see these phrases weren't in it (was the gist of their comments). It then transpired when people started posting screenshots from Google books and photos from their own hard copies that all the quotes (and more) were in fact in the book, at which point Clanchy largely stopped responding to the people who were showing her the receipts, so to speak, while some people (Pullman again prominent) who'd previously been saying 'those quotes aren't in the book!' changed their tune to 'OK, they are in the book – but you're wrong to be offended by them!' I follow Sunny Singh on Twitter, so have been paying a lot of attention to it (she's one of the women Pullman was referring to when he made his Taliban comment to a user who'd been discussing a different book entirely, about a month and a half earlier), and I followed Clanchy until I saw the photos from the inside of the book which made very clear that the 'made-up to smear her' phrases were not in fact made up.

              One minor correction to the OP, Nef: the book hasn't yet been rewritten and republished (impossible to do it that quickly!). Picador have said they'll work with Clanchy to do so, and will be working with specialist readers in the future. They obviously haven't withdrawn the current edition from sale or distanced themselves from working with her again (I realise you didn't say they had). No such thing as bad publicity, after all, hey? The consensus on UK Publishing Twitter seems to be that for the last few years they've been one of the worst of the big UK publishing houses for paying lip service to these sorts of issues without actually doing anything lasting or meaningful. And that's saying something, because the others haven't exactly covered themselves in glory.

              Meanwhile, it's now selling like hot cakes on Amazon and Clanchy gets to build a redemption narrative she can sell to those daft enough to believe her. Her previous book was pretty problematic in various ways as well, apparently.

              And re: the tweets in DR's post: no, I think those two have missed the point. The problem isn't that she's a crap writer (though she might be). It is very definitely that she's written a book that uses all sorts of racist, classist, ableist tropes which take advantage of and harm the pupils she had a duty of care to, and that when pulled up on that (via Goodreads, two years after publication because when it was first published a lot of people stayed quiet because they knew how far and what sort of response speaking out would get them ...) she's set the attack dogs on her marginalised critics. It's absolutely not important how crap a writer she is or isn't, or whether or not the book is good or bad. The problem isn't the great damage done to the high art of literature, it's the large amount of very definitely not OK stuff in the book.
              Last edited by Sam; 13-08-2021, 06:08.

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                #8
                https://twitter.com/ProfSunnySingh/status/1425766881345081346?s=19

                A thread from Sunny Singh.

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by Sam View Post
                  All Philip Pullman's apologised for is replying to a tweet about something completely different, thinking it was about the Clanchy book, because he was so eager to compare three women of colour to the Taliban. He quite pointedly hasn't actually apologised to those women for making said comparison, although he did apologise for his 'intemperate language'. (I've just gone to his Twitter and read his 'apology' for about the fifth time today to make sure I wasn't misremembering.) He's said some really outrageous things over the last week and barely acknowledged the harm or offence that he's caused. SB, I'm afraid he's very much outed himself as one of the 'cancel culture' lot.
                  Ah, crap. That's thoroughly disappointing.

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                    #10
                    A guardian piece

                    https://twitter.com/monisha_rajesh/status/1426180913893945357?s=20

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                      #11
                      That article is really good. And the story goes deeper. A few (qualified) people on Twitter have now bought the book and are discussing it in lots of detail with an eye specifically on the various ethical issues. One is going through it very slowly – she's not threading her tweets but she is putting them all on the #DiReadsClanchy hashtag if anyone wants to follow. Another user who that hashtag's author seems to know (and who you'll find easily if you read the hashtag for a few minutes) is looking at it from a student safeguarding point of view and has managed (she says with no real difficulty) to identify who some of the kids discussed are in real life.

                      I'm going to let you make your own ways there rather than linking, and am avoiding directly naming the users, because of the abuse some of Clanchy's critics have received online. Unlike the ones named further up the thread, the ones I mention in this post haven't as far as I've seen been named in various national media outlets (although one of them appears further up this thread). I realise the hashtag's publicly viewable but at least not linking might complicate matters a bit if there are bots involved.

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                        #12
                        https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1426451947289292803?s=19

                        Where do you start with this?

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                          #13
                          I'd start and finish with the observation that Lionel Shriver is a piece of shit and the Times increasingly likes to fill its columns with stinking far right shit whether from Melanie Philips or Shriver or a host of others

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                            #14
                            https://twitter.com/BridgeeCee/status/1426793782859677703?s=19

                            That's really sad. Pullman, Shriver and others have a lot to answer for.

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                              #15
                              Ah that's a shame. She posted a day or two ago that she was going to be stepping off it for a while.

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                                #16
                                The more I read about this story the greater my concern for the lack of safeguarding involved, the children are, despite anonymity, clearly identifiable from her other book.

                                She's used a position of privilege to exploit vulnerable children.

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                                  #17
                                  Absolutely.

                                  Monisha Rajesh is back on Twitter at the same handle, by the way.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by Sam View Post
                                    Absolutely.

                                    Monisha Rajesh is back on Twitter at the same handle, by the way.
                                    Thanks for letting me know, that's good news. I saw you got a retweet as well.

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                                      #19
                                      "If anyone has read the Kate Clanchy book ‘Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me’ and shares my deep concern about both the book currently on sale, and the planned new edition, then you may wish to read (and I hope sign) this open letter to Picador Books.
                                      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...f=true&sd=true

                                      For context you could also look at #DiReadsClanchy on Twitter for extracts and commentary, or read this article by Monisha Rajesh
                                      https://amp.theguardian.com/books/20...k-kate-clanchy "

                                      In case anyone wishes to sign this is part of an email sent to me. Happy to share if you DM me.

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                                        #20
                                        The letter was sent earlier today, by the way, but Di is going to continue gathering names on it all the same. Glad it reached you, AE, as that suggests it is indeed being shared in teaching circles as she'd hoped (apologies for not sticking the link up here, but it didn't occur to me, stupidly!).

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                                          #21
                                          https://www.culturematters.org.uk/in...class-conflict

                                          This is a good read.

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                                            #22
                                            https://twitter.com/veldaelliott/status/1469232329679904770?t=CqnA18hWPAMgJF1OLERbYg&s=19

                                            Her actions continue to prove what a nasty piece of work she is.

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                                              #23
                                              Yep, and Picador and Philip Gwyn Jones's hit piece on Sunny Singh, Chimene Suleyman and Monisha Rajesh in the Telegraph earlier this week showed it too. PGJ had told all three privately that he was eager to take their points on board and put in the work to make sure this doesn't happen again, and a couple of months later he goes and gives a quote to the Telegraph saying he and Picador regret not having stood by Clanchy more firmly, cancel culture this that and the other and so on. One of the women in question has had to spend part of this week with a friend (also part of publishing Twitter) and be looked after because she feared she was close to suicide.

                                              Hamza Jahanzeb of The Bookseller has set up a group fundraiser for the three of them. He's not sure exactly what he'll get them (partly because the response has been greater than he'd bargained for) but says it'll be an experience of some sort. If you'd like to (and are able to) show solidarity with them, you can do so here (yes, it's on PayPal ...).

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                                                #24
                                                https://twitter.com/monisha_rajesh/status/1485249505977155584?t=EjJN3Xnf3imyJ3K19M9lig&s=19

                                                And it continues.

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                                                  #25
                                                  https://twitter.com/chimenesuleyman/status/1487819663388123140?t=cTKx8gHJVZMyGj24SDCwsw&s=19

                                                  It's relentless. Clanchy gets an extremely favorable article in the media today which names the three women who opposed her. It ignored the safeguarding issues raised by them, the racism, etc.

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