This is really annoying to see so many people shaming Padel over bringing up with Walcott has done. It's not false that he's a total sleezbag just because we don't want to believe it and instead believe that we are just forcing some racist stereotype on him.
He visited my school last year, and even though I'm not in the English department and I was warned that he was a tremendous sleeze, I STILL managed to get hit on by derek Walcott.
PLUS, oxford has such an intimate tutor-style teaching system that I think the fact that he hits on every female student he has CAN and SHOULD be taken into consideration. How can we expected to feel comfortable and respected around him, even just as students, when his attitude is so demeaning?
@blinuet: I'm no great fan of Walcott, but the Oxford Professor of Poetry is really an honorary role - it involves public readings mainly. How about Billy Collins for the job?
@DexterHaven: I have to friend you for that. He (and Poust and Neruda (I know)) and others are responsible for awakening me to a newfound interest in poetry. This after spending half a lifetime focusing only on literary fiction. And English murder mysteries.
@blinuet: I can't speak for everyone. I condemn Padel for being a sleazy coward who doesn't even know how to conduct a smear campaign. I think everyone agrees that Walcott is a sleazebag. But Padel has proved herself to be his equal.
Poets are notoriously self-centered, pretentious jerks. I'm sorry we ever got onto this parade of paying attention to the poet's personal life because I enjoyed literature so much more when I had no idea Pound was an anti-Semitic fuck, Joyce was a scum-sucking bottom feeder who'd take the last buck from a bum, and Stein sat on her ass in France during WW II.
To sum up, she still thinks he's kind of sleazy, but chooses to make a distinction between his behavior and his art. I don't agree with all of her points, but it's an interesting perspective nonetheless.
@Miss. Money-Sterling: She makes very many good points. My question is how sexist is our vision of "sexual harassment" in academia? There are pleny of female profs who sleep with students--when they are "approached" by male students, is it the prof's status that makes it harassment? Is it always the prof's fault? Is it always wrong, or even always harmful? I have no dog in his hunt, it just always strikes me that there is an untold, or overlooked, side to this issue.
@irishbreakfast: Well, I've been in academia for a long time and I've only ever come across one case of a female prof sleeping with a male student and countless cases of the other type. It's a power dynamic, and it replicates the way patriarchal power works, which is that older men have licence to have access to young women, and young women are expected to feel flattered by their sexual attention.
I think it is harmful: it upsets the very close bonds of trust and impartiality we're supposed to uphold with our students. I've spoken to several female students whose friends were sleeping with professors and they were always upset and skeeved out about it.
@DexterHaven: Right, and there I agree. But does the female prof--male student provoke the same judgement in you? And for all of the above arguments I am only speaking of prof-grad: anything involving prof-undergrad is wrong, on any level. They are children, in every way.
@irishbreakfast: Sorry, I was talking about prof-undergrad relationships which are still quite common here. As for prof-grad relationships, that's a whole different area of wrong. I've never come across a female professor sleeping with her grad student, though I'm sure it happens. For me, it's also an issue of credibility: I feel that women have to work harder to be taken seriously, and sadly, relationships with students are more detrimental to female professors than to male ones.
Derek Walcott is one of my absolute favorite poets, and I was disappointed to read about his history of sexual harassment. This whole thing makes me feel really slimy.
@NellMood: I'm not a huge poetry person but I'm not sure how many poets would fall into the 'great guy/gal' category. Walcott's work can still be loved and admired, even if the guy is a pig.
@topsy: Absolutely. It's disappointing, but it's not going to ruin my enjoyment of his work. His epic Omeros (check it out! It's brilliant!) is one of my favorite things, ever.
Why the hell didn't she just write an open letter to the selection committee? She could have said, 'Look, you don't have to appoint me; I'm just saying, do you really want to appoint him? Maybe it would be wise to consider other candidates.'
Yeah, I think the identity politics here are much less interesting (or relevant) than the politics, period. I always feel a bit of schadenfreude when the people who purport to have dedicated their lives to the higher purpose of scholarship reveal themselves to be down-and-dirty egomaniacal backstabbers.
@topsy: Bit harsh, no? What has annoyed me most about the thing is that it has given rise to lots of crappy and reductive discussions about sexual harassment within academia in the British press. Eg Clive James' comment in The Guardian the other day:
"But what male teacher is going to escape a sexual harassment case? All you've got to do is stand there, and you're sexually harassing them."
@DexterHaven: Is it news that Clive James is an asshole? Walcott is not responsible for all the idiots who have their own woman-hater agenda and see this as an opportunity.
And I don't think I was being harsh enough. Padal brought into question Walcott's 'Britishness', reminding people that he wasn't born in England. I'm British too (I was actually born there) and black; that shit sounds a bit too Thatcher/National Front for my taste. Calling her a scumbag was a compliment in my eyes.
@emilyanne: That's what really outrages me. In order to win a prize, Padel used every trick in the book. Including the old tried and true 'black man as sexual predator'. He's not 'one of us'. He doesn't deserve this honour; it belongs to true Brits. Padel is beneath contempt. Luckily I have a supply for 'really low contempt', just for her.
I don't think I can continue being Black and female anymore. The double conciousness is making my head explode.
Padel- "good clean fight"? Yeah, no. If these allegations were serious, I feel that they could have been raised in another way. The sneaky approach she took is what made it look bad. And when women exhibit the BAD behavior that men do, I don't think the criticism should be about sexism so much as the human mistake that she made. It's wrong when men do it, it's wrong when women do it.
It sounds like they made two bad selections. Who's on deck?
@Sister Toldja: I hear what you're saying but the 'allegations' against Walcott had been dealt with years ago. In fact, they weren't allegations because he had admitted to sexually harassment. But Padel obviously didn't think that her poetry could stand on her own merits and had to go stinky.
Girl, I LOVE being black and female. Don't give up on it yet.
Padel's behavior was completely due to her own interest in securing the spot. Somehow it seems like if it were done in the open instead of in a sneaky way, it would be less distasteful.
Team Walcott, now and forever. Walcott admitted to his crime (and I think that's what it is) years ago. Padel wanted to win the prize and didn't mind stooping low to get it. Now nobody's the winner; what was the fucking point.
@topsy: I'm with you on Team Walcott, although I was disappointed to read about his sexual harassment of students. (I think that my support of/favour for Walcott is coloured too by seeing him through a Walcott vs. Naipaul lens for so many years, which cannot fail to work in Walcott's favour because Naipaul is such a tremendous asshole.) The tactics used in this race were scummy, and have been quite literally self-defeating.
I do not by any means condone Walcott's sexually predatory behaviour (I am imagining myself in the place of that student at Harvard and how completely creeped out and frustrated and angry and tainted I would have felt at that sort of behaviour from someone I admired and respected), but I think that by withdrawing as he did (and issuing no denials of his wrongdoing), he handled the whole thing with as much grace as he could under the circumstances.
@titilayo-yo-yo-yo: You hate Naipaul too!!! My mother is from Trinidad, so I know more about old V than I would like to. I wholeheartedly agree that he is a TREMENDOUS asshole. And if you want to hear stories about sexual harassment, he's your boy.
I don't think anyone who is 'Team Walcott' is condoning his behaviour. He has admitted to being a harrasser; what else is he supposed to do? A lot of art would have to be thrown out if we measure their work by a specific moral compass. Padel was stupid. Never let you greed and desperation lead you into making so many boneheaded mistakes.
@sangmo: I don't mean to be dismissing sexual harrasment but what has that got to do with his art. And is there a statute of limitations on this kind of thing? Or is it okay to bring it up if there's a possibility that bringing it up can benefit the whistle-blower?
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He visited my school last year, and even though I'm not in the English department and I was warned that he was a tremendous sleeze, I STILL managed to get hit on by derek Walcott.
PLUS, oxford has such an intimate tutor-style teaching system that I think the fact that he hits on every female student he has CAN and SHOULD be taken into consideration. How can we expected to feel comfortable and respected around him, even just as students, when his attitude is so demeaning?
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It's here if you're interested:
[entertainment.timesonline.co.uk]
To sum up, she still thinks he's kind of sleazy, but chooses to make a distinction between his behavior and his art. I don't agree with all of her points, but it's an interesting perspective nonetheless.
05/26/09
I have no dog in his hunt, it just always strikes me that there is an untold, or overlooked, side to this issue.
05/26/09
I think it is harmful: it upsets the very close bonds of trust and impartiality we're supposed to uphold with our students. I've spoken to several female students whose friends were sleeping with professors and they were always upset and skeeved out about it.
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He harassed a woman and was caught.
He wanted the job,
But then had to sob:
His past was tarnished as an ink spot.
Then a poet named Padel did seem
So good for the job and pristine
Till she told journalists that
Walcott was a brat
And and a lecherous libertine.
Oxford, hire me!
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"But what male teacher is going to escape a sexual harassment case? All you've got to do is stand there, and you're sexually harassing them."
Pffft.
05/26/09
And I don't think I was being harsh enough. Padal brought into question Walcott's 'Britishness', reminding people that he wasn't born in England. I'm British too (I was actually born there) and black; that shit sounds a bit too Thatcher/National Front for my taste. Calling her a scumbag was a compliment in my eyes.
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/sarcasm
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Padel- "good clean fight"? Yeah, no. If these allegations were serious, I feel that they could have been raised in another way. The sneaky approach she took is what made it look bad. And when women exhibit the BAD behavior that men do, I don't think the criticism should be about sexism so much as the human mistake that she made. It's wrong when men do it, it's wrong when women do it.
It sounds like they made two bad selections. Who's on deck?
05/26/09
Girl, I LOVE being black and female. Don't give up on it yet.
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Sigh.
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Agreed. It's like living in stereo!
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I do not by any means condone Walcott's sexually predatory behaviour (I am imagining myself in the place of that student at Harvard and how completely creeped out and frustrated and angry and tainted I would have felt at that sort of behaviour from someone I admired and respected), but I think that by withdrawing as he did (and issuing no denials of his wrongdoing), he handled the whole thing with as much grace as he could under the circumstances.
05/26/09
I believe his past behaviour should have been put out there. Boldly, not anonymously.
05/26/09
I don't think anyone who is 'Team Walcott' is condoning his behaviour. He has admitted to being a harrasser; what else is he supposed to do? A lot of art would have to be thrown out if we measure their work by a specific moral compass. Padel was stupid. Never let you greed and desperation lead you into making so many boneheaded mistakes.
05/26/09