Kate Clanchy, a teacher and writer whose popular memoir has inspired readers for the past three years, now realizes she was wrong. Those words were not, in fact, inspiring. They were “racist” and “ableist.” At least, that’s what the internet says.
Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me publisher Picador Books (which, of course, has a virtue-signal rainbow in its Twitter profile image) announced this week Clanchy would work with the company to update the “problematic” work.
“Kate Clanchy is extremely sorry for the upset caused by her book and is grateful for the insights of writers and communities affected by it,” the publisher tweeted on Wednesday. “Picador proposes to consult an appropriate group of specialist readers about the update and hopes to release a new edition in the autumn.”
For her part, the U.K. writer tweeted, “I know I got many things wrong, and welcome the chance to write better, more lovingly.”
What happened? Did Picador Books discover Clanchy is some sort of insidious child abuser? Of course not. Some readers simply chose to create a controversy over the way Clanchy described the children she taught over her 30-year career as an educator.
According to critics, “chocolate-coloured skin” and “almond-shaped eyes” are not just clichéd descriptions — they are “racial tropes.” Clanchy writes of two autistic children that “probably, more than an hour a week” with them “would irritate me, too, but for that hour I like them very much.” It may not sound nice, but Clanchy is certainly honest about her experience as a teacher. Isn’t that what writing an autobiography about your work is all about?
Other descriptions throughout the book may sound blunt or, to a world trained to see all white people talking about race (except for Robin DiAngelo) as bad, racially insensitive.
But the real problem critics have doesn’t seem always to hinge on Clanchy’s specific characterizations. Part of their critique is she bothers to have an opinion at all. One author criticizing Clanchy writes, “In my own memoir … I refused to use physical descriptors for anyone.” So, was that one character black or white? It doesn’t matter — the author doesn’t see color! Oh wait, that’s problematic too.
An article from the Mary Sue complains the book “already has a faint whiff of white saviorism and imperial gaze, and that is before getting into the word choice that started the discourse on it.”
Ironically, the Orwell Foundation also weighed in, only to add an incredibly diplomatic ode to Clanchy’s right to express herself. “The foundation understands the importance of language and encourages open and careful debate about all the work which comes through our prizes,” it said of the book, which won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2020. “Everyone should be able to engage in these discussions, on any platform, without fear of abuse.”
It must be hard to be an author these days — you don’t know if you should include more diversity in your books or if you’ll be criticized for writing outside of your experience. Even if you’re the wokest of them all, you still risk writing an insensitive plot that will tank your novel entirely.
Basically, you have two choices: You can write a book, reviewed by dozens of “sensitivity readers” who will strip all creativity and boldness from your work and hopefully escape the mob — or you can write a book as you please and wait for angry readers to strike. If you choose the latter, don’t claim the excerpts of your book floating around the internet are “made up,” as Clanchy originally did. Own your work.
Until more people are willing to stand by their convictions in the face of those who would like to silence them, we’re going to see a lot more reprints.
