Cancel Culture reaches Poetry TW

I find cancel culture a bit anxiety inducing to be honest. I mean, I'm not a celebrity or youtuber. I have less than 100 followers on tiktok and less than 500 on Instagram. And to be honest, not many people see my content and that's fine. I mostly use them to track my 'adventures' and reading history or whatever.

However, I've seen influencers, youtubers, actual celebrities, lose entire careers because of tweets posted when they were in their teens. To be clear: I obviously don't condone any form of prejudice or offense. But a person can learn a lot between one ignorant tweet as a teen to their career as an actual adult. I hope that makes sense.

I mean, if someone exhibits habitual prejudice/offensive behaviour then, yes, absolutely, they should suffer the consequences.

To put it into finer context, I've seen people on tiktok 'calling out' celebrities just for not publicly addressing an issue. Is that the same as being prejudice/homophobia/racism/sexism? Personally, I don't think so. I've also seen tiktok condemn an author for not being diverse enough in her books. However, as a white person, I don't always feel comfortable writing about other cultures. I understand there's such a thing as research but even then, as a white person, I fear I'm going to be seen as trying too hard.

On a similar note, in a lot of my fiction, I write a lot of queer female characters. That isn't to say that I have anything against any other genders or queer relationships but I'm more comfortable writing from a female perspective but would I be criticised for not writing about trans people and other LGBTQ+ relationships?

No one reads my fiction but this is what I think about.

And I think @Shen Friebe and I had a bit of a discussion about poetry on @Adam Gary 's 'What Happened to Poetry?' thread (though I could be wrong because I've slept since then!) and I basically said that I feel like there's a lot of pressure on poets to address issues. I mostly write about my depression and my family. Just because I'm not writing about feminisim, that doesn't make me not a feminist.

I hope this post makes sense at least.

Firstly, the 'almond eyes' thing is ridiculous. I have only ever seen almond-shaped eyes be associated with beauty, and it is important to note that it isn't always attributed to POC women- or women at that. Also, there is something deeply uncomfortable about the fact that the thoughts and opinions of these POC children are not only silenced, but worse, completely disregarded and don't have an impact on the outcome of this situation. From what I can tell from the photos and the names of the children, some of them are Islamic and are possibly from the Middle East. And are women. Unfortunately, they or their families have probably migrated from or fled countries where women are persecuted for embracing any kind of autonomy whatsoever, only for their opinions to ring silent in the ears of (probably) white apologists and sympathisers who can't actually empathise with the experiences of a POC. I see this happen All. The. Time.

I think the biggest detriment in woke-white discourse is the lack of coherency in their arguments and declarations, i.e. making the assumption that something is racist in the first place. Why the assumption that having chocolate coloured skin or almond eyes is racist or a negative description? That tells me that whoever made this deduction were not thinking truly empirically (as they should when you're trying to pass judgement onto something or someone) and already possessed the disposition to find something negative or racist in an image, sentence or scenario. Having said that, like Sophie I do believe criticism is owed when it is deserved, and I do believe that people can be inherently racist without even knowing it. However, the way this is handled is often completely wrong. As Adam said and I couldn't agree more, woke culture is only breeding more innate anger and even violence, which is exactly what conservatives and the far-right movement has been condemned for doing for so long (as they SHOULD be!) As someone who is pretty left-leaning politically, I'm pretty disgusted by the justifications of the radical left (it's almost taboo to even say that). But sometimes you can go so far left, you start to emerge from the far right. The only way to heal and grow from inherent racism is to be educated about it, which is the complete antithesis of violence and anger. It's what differentiates the human being from the neanderthal.

But my next question is, what level of harm do these books actually inflict on the very people who are allegedly victims of her 'racism'? How has Clanchy damaged the reputations and mental health of the children she is writing about, or the reputations and mental health of children who look like her students? Though we shouldn't and can't assume no inherent racism is present in any of Clanchy's poems, let's be real, it isn't Mein Kampf. I think Sophie said it perfectly and I won't add more to that:

I think that Clanchy's descriptions of POC students had pure and even beautiful intentions, but it is a little strange that she went out of her way to provide these flowery descriptions only when it comes to POC students, sort of implying that being white is the default. Also as writers, I think we can all agree that the phrases "chocolate colored skin" and "almond shaped eyes" are extremely cliche and leave something to be desired.

Sophie is again correct; this is a psuedo-political argument not founded in critical thinking and deduction. Given what we have all expressed in this thread, we can put to bed the redundancy and dangers of cancel culture when it is over-blown and corrupted.

On a side note, i find that there is something... very fake... about woke culture. It's amazing how many woke folks (which is what i'm calling them now, lol) are demonising the very people they probably used to be. I remember many years ago on my University's Facebook page, i made a post asking everyone who the new trademen on site were. My uni must have been constructing a new building or something, and every time I walked past the same construction workers, there was always this one guy who would smile and stare at me as I walked past. He wouldn't break eye contact. He wasn't being friendly or polite- he was smiling and watching me as I walked from one side of the sidewalk to the other. It was undoubtedly creepy. So when i mentioned in the Facebook group that there was one guy who would not break his gaze from me as i walked past and that i found it a bit creepy, oh BOY was I ambushed by a ton comments like 'oh GEEZ, guess we can't even SMILE at people now' and 'he was just smiling, you're over-reacting' etc. etc. Important to note that half the people commenting weren't men. But I guarantee you, these people are probably so extremely politically correct now days they would be calling for Clanchy's head. I understand people grow and evolve from who they once were, often considerably, but when you're ruthlessly chastising people on the internet or deeming them a bigot which is going to attract all sorts of online bullying, I can't find any legitimacy in what they say and I'm side-eyeing them all...

Personally, I don't agree with cancel culture but I also think that a lot of times the term "cancel culture" is thrown around too loosely when all that is really happening is that someone is being criticized (which is totally fair game when someone is a public figure).

Regarding this particular case, I don't believe that a book, or art in general, should be taken off the market regardless of content as a matter of principle. I believe it is a good thing that people can consume all sorts of work, no matter how controversial, and make a judgement on it for themselves.

In this instance for example, taking Clanchy's books off the market shuts down meaningful conversation about the nature of her work, and instead, starts petty, reactionary, psuedo-political debate about "cancel culture" which is much less productive.

Now regarding what she actually wrote, do I think Clanchy is a racist monster? No. Absolutely not. Do I think some of her statements are at best cliche and at worst a little cringe? Yes.

I think that Clanchy's descriptions of POC students had pure and even beautiful intentions, but it is a little strange that she went out of her way to provide these flowery descriptions only when it comes to POC students, sort of implying that being white is the default. Also as writers, I think we can all agree that the phrases "chocolate colored skin" and "almond shaped eyes" are extremely cliche and leave something to be desired.

I also found the following excerpt from an article written on this matter, and in particular, her descriptions of autistic children immediately gave me that protective-alarm-bell feeling I hope to never get from an educator of any of my future children.

"Readers and fellow authors had been critical on Goodreads and Twitter of descriptions in the memoir, including the use of racial tropes such as “chocolate-coloured skin” and “almond-shaped eyes”, and references to one student as “African Jonathon” and another being “so small and square and Afghan with his big nose and premature moustache”.

Another passage was highlighted for the inclusion of ableist descriptions, in which Clanchy, a poet and teacher, refers to two autistic children as “unselfconsciously odd” and “jarring company”, and writes “probably, more than an hour a week” in their company “would irritate me, too, but for that hour I like them very much”."

Overall, I don't think we should cancel, demonize, or take Clanchy's work off the market. Like everyone, she's a person who fucks up every once in a while and I have read that she has been open to what people are saying, which is alI that we can ask of anybody. I'm sure that the majority of her book is filled with beauty and wisdom, and I think it's good that this whole situation has led to insightful conversation to help promote progress in the world.

TBH I'm sick of people being 'cancelled' nowadays, it seems people are getting offended by anything. If poetry is art then it should be free to explore any subject it wishes.

And from this article the author was banned for describing a black child as having chocolate coloured skin. Sad times. Would I be banned if I described a whit person with milk white skin?

We are beginning to enter a world in the west where we don't seem to be able to make up our own minds about what we read. But i guess this is inevitable as we drift toward a socialist society.

Most people are going to reject anything that is overtly racist, sexist etc anyway, we don't need protecting.