racism
Chick lit? Hardly!
I’ve never been into what used to be called chick lit, now more properly light romance – ‘refined sugar for the brain’ – but realised this week it was presumptuous of me to dismiss it without a fair trial. It’s been a rather fraught week with a lot to exercise my mind, so I needed something undemanding, and this seemed as good a week as any to give it a whirl. One name came to me: during lockdown I attended lots of on-line book festivals and a bubbly author with a lovely Irish accent impressed me with her charm and eloquence – Marian Keyes. I raked around and … yep, found one of her novels. I’ve since read her biography and apologise unreservedly for classifying her so glibly. In reality her books defy genre and sell in their thousands.
This Charming Man is billed as dealing with serious issues but is light reading with plenty of humour, so it should be the just sort of thing I can dip into for distraction that won’t bog me down in angst. … or so I thought.
The ‘charming man’ in question is charismatic politician Paddy de Courcy. Word is out that he’s getting married, and there are four women in particular who have every reason to feel powerful reactions to this fact. The tale is told through their eyes with clever changes of font and style to anchor their stories.
Stylist and fashion guru Lola Daly has a vested interest because she’s his current girlfriend – or thought she was – but she’s certainly not the bride-to-be. Devastated by the news, she vanishes to a rural retreat to try to get perspective. From childhood she’s had a real fear of abandonment, but it keeps happening. What did she do wrong to lose Paddy? Was her Dad right: Never trust a politician? She’s left feeling worthless, her confidence in shreds, and this spills over into her work life, leading to her quitting city life and settling for a very different kind of existence in a rural backwater, while she tries to regain her self respect and confidence.
Journalist Grace Gildee is desperate to get a story on Paddy de Courcy from the inside and thinks Lola would give her a real scoop. But even big money won’t tempt Lola to talk. Then Grace is asked … no, ordered to go and interview the new fiancee in her professional capacity. She can’t! She insists she can’t! Her integrity would be compromised because of her personal connection to Paddy de Courcy. But she’s given no choice; she has to go. The bride-to-be herself will brook no other.
Grace’s twin sister Marnie is one reason for her resistance. Paddy was her first love, and she can’t forget him. But Paddy de Courcy has had a devastating effect on Marnie’s life. Her tale unravels as she sinks further and further into alcoholism.
And then there’s the fourth woman, the real bride-to-be, Alicia Thornton, determined to be the perfect wife. Someone with her own scores to settle. Who has her eye on the ultimate prize.
Well, this is certainly no ‘refined sugar’! Keyes took a long time writing it and says from the outset that it honours all women who are the victims of domestic abuse. But, whilst abuse certainly lies at its core, the book deals with far more issues than that: alcoholism; cross dressing; press harassment; Irish politics; racism; addiction, ageism. Gritty, dark, troubling, but woven through with light touches and even outright comedy.
It’s not my kind of reading (and it’s a veritable door-stopper at almost 900 pages long!!) but I take my hat off to a very talented writer. I shan’t make the mistake of dismissing such literature so lightly in future.
Beyond race and prejudice
What a heart warming autobiography Becoming is – reinforcing the opinion I formed watching the Obamas during their time in the public eye: decent, honourable, hard-working, intelligent, well grounded, warm, caring.
The book is divided into three parts:
Becoming me – takes us from Michelle‘s childhood through to her falling in love with Barack.
Becoming us – covers their marriage, parenthood and entering the world of politics through to Barack becoming the forty-fourth President of the United States.
Becoming more – sees them surviving two full terms in office.
Her father taught her to work hard, laugh often and keep her word; her mother showed her how to think for herself and use her voice. Michelle Robinson herself emerged from humble origins into adulthood adopting all these attitudes, well balanced thanks to her close family unit, consistent love, high expectations, strong values, encouraging her to work hard at improving her sense of self-worth, excelling at school well enough to study law at Harvard – and all that in spite of the prejudices about women and race prevailing in the USA. As she puts it:
I grew up with a disabled dad in a too-small house with not much money in a starting-to-fail neighborhood, and I also grew up surrounded by love and music in a diverse city in a country where an education can take you far. I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it.
By the time she met Barack Obama, Michelle was already making a name for herself as a clever, articulate, determined, no-nonsense, principled woman, trying to make a difference in the lives of disadvantaged people. She recounts with disarming candour how Barack’s political ambition and slovenly habits strained her tolerance at times, and her struggle to retain her own sense of identity as an independent woman and mother in the face of his drive to further his career, and do his bit to improve the lot of ordinary American citizens.
Family was always her top priority. Though Barack was increasingly caught up in campaigning and meetings and responsibilities to the country, Michelle remained doggedly insistent that she should get back home to her two daughters at night, and attend school functions. Once she became First Lady even the most mundane of ordinary activities would become major strategic exercises such was the level of security necessary to protect them all, but throughout her maternal devotion never wavered.
In spite of their high principles, their obvious love for one another, and the lack of scandal in their lives, once the Obamas rose to political prominence they became fair game for every reporter around the world. Barack, naturally calm and steeped in political history, absorbed by the big problems in the country, remained relatively undisturbed by the rumours and misperceptions, but he was the central figure, and as such had the full weight of a large team of advisers and supporters around him. Michelle cared what people thought, craved approval, and took criticism to heart, but as simply the spouse of the main man, she was given no training and only limited back-up … until that is she began attracting negative publicity.
Over time their decency and high hopes for improving the lives of their fellow countrymen gained traction and their popularity soared, but even as support swelled, it was shadowed by cruel counter-narratives suggesting they were charlatans, ineligible and inappropriate to be America’s leading couple. Hearing this through Michelle’s eyes gives it added poignancy and pain. For someone who had struggled with her sense of self-worth for much of her formative years, having her own intellectual and personal and political credentials maligned falsely and publicly cut deep.
I am telling you, this stuff hurt.
And resentment built. After all she hadn’t chosen this life, she’d never like politics, she’d left her job and given up her identity and power for Barack’s campaign and ambition. To weather these tensions, somehow, she knew, she had to reclaim her personal self-worth and be her true self wherever she went. Happily, once she was given more support, she was able to embrace her role and begin to enjoy the unique opportunities she was given to woo the American people through the force of her personality, the eloquence of her distinctive voice, and the power of her message for change.
She allowed her naturally warm empathetic style free rein, engaging with people close up in their lives. She did a lot of hugging! And she learned an important lesson: It’s harder to hate up close. The more she showed the people how genuine and caring she was, the more they came to see the caricatures of her were untrue.
And so their campaign flourished. The election would be the real test: had the country indeed moved beyond race and prejudice as the polls suggested? Would it prove that Michelle’s conviction was right:
Barack was the right person for this moment in history … ?
And indeed, as we all know, on 4 November 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was declared the forty-fourth President of the United States. He could declare that
On this day we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
And so Michelle rose from obscurity to become First Lady of the United States of America aka FLOTUS – the first black woman ever to hold this position. She lived in the White House for 8 years, eager to make it less formal, more accessible, more welcoming, more representative of a cross section of American society. She herself wanted not be a well-dressed ornament cutting ribbons and cakes, smiling adoringly at her husband, but to make a difference in a meaningful way: improving the nation’s health, supporting service personnel, combatting racism, helping ordinary people – and especially children – to feel valued and supported …
(to) push back against the old and damning narrative about being a black urban kid in America, the one that foretold failure and then hastened its arrival …
… to point out students’ strengths and give them some glimpse of a way forward …
And in the drive to do that, she was prepared to accept for a while the loss of privacy, the erosion of family time, the presence of a constant security detail, less time for her own work.
Which of us could fail to see the difference between the two couples who took centre stage at the end of those eight years as the Obamas handed over the reins to Donald and Melania Trump? – stark and palpable for all to see in the coverage on our screens. The former, gracious and dignified, smiling and courteous, even with the man who had mocked and vilified them so publicly for so long:
a bully, a man who among other things demeaned minorities and expressed contempt for prisoners of war, challenging the dignity of our country with practically his every utterance.
… bragging about sexually assaulting women, using language so lewd and vulgar that it put media outlets in a quandary about how to quote it without violating the established standards of decency.
In reviewing their time in the highest office, Michelle was able to say with complete conviction,
we’d managed two terms in office without major scandal. We had held ourselves and the people who worked with us to the highest standards of ethics and decency …
It was now time for her to begin the task of finding herself again, of squaring who she was with where she came from, and where she wanted to go. Of finding her voice yet again.
Throughout her story what comes across is the sheer humanity, grace, integrity and humility of this lady. A person we would surely all love to have sitting beside us at a banquet.
Whistle blowing
To err is human, to cover up is unforgivable, and to fail to learn is inexcusable.
Prof Sir Liam Donaldson (former CMO England)
Whistle in the Wind has to be the most disturbing book I’ve read this year – and probably not best tackled when we’re all rather dispirited about the rising Covid numbers, and increasing restrictions on our freedoms. Hey ho! Once started I couldn’t go back.
It tells the story of one NHS senior consultant surgeon’s battle to get his hospital/Trust to take action in the face of a catalogue of failings and dangerous practices in his place of work – abysmal clinical standards, gross imbalances in workload, extremely poor judgements, shirked responsibilities, dysfunctional relationships, financial irregularities. But the ‘guilty parties’ resented Peter Duffy drawing attention to their deficiencies, and mounted a deliberate campaign of victimisation and counter accusations against him.
At the time, the Trust’s website declared that no whistle-blower would lose their job or suffer any detriment if they spoke up to identify genuine patient safety concerns – a claim made by most large organisations nowadays. But the reality was far from the promise. Even more unbelievably, the same Trust had recently had its Midwifery Department found guilty of gross and shocking failings, a fact plastered over the media, but senior management nevertheless still appeared complacent and apathetic. Ranks closed. Honesty and truth were stifled.
Hugely daunted, Mr Duffy nevertheless eventually reported his concerns to the Care Quality Commission whose job it is to oversee safe and effective practice in health and social care settings. Until I read this book, I thought they were indeed the go-to organisation for action and a fair independent hearing. But in his case, they didn’t even attempt to corroborate his account. And furthermore, they specifically state that they will take no part in protecting the individual whistle-blower. Who knew?!
Retaliatory action against Mr Duffy escalated, and included not only malicious, false, fabricated and covert accusations – defamatory emails and letters claiming he was both racist and a bully, and had fraudulently obtained money to which he was not entitled – but also docking a substantial sum of money owed to him, and eventually loss of his job. Accusations against him were sent to the police as well as senior management. He even received a phonecall warning him that the consultants he had reported were ‘utterly committed to revenge’. He felt ‘thoroughly hated and despised’.
In spite of his senior status and established good reputation, no one in any of the organisations set up to deal with such situations seemed to be paying any attention to his legitimate and proven concerns. There was no feedback, no support, no action.
How this man coped with seeing continuing incidences of neglect, malpractice, avoidable harm or deaths, on top of the personal vendetta against him, I really don’t know. I once blew the whistle in a much more low-key way and suffered from the aftermath of the ensuing hostility and injustice for years. Reading this book stirred the embers of that horror quite stressfully. Finally, even Mr Duffy had no appetite for submitting reports of sub-optimal care which went unheeded; he felt intimidated and frightened by the hostility and retaliation.
By now the toxicity within the hospital – ongoing rudeness, aggression, hostility, dysfunctional behaviour and relationships, collusion, incompetence, cover up, neglect, dangerous practices – together with his own fear of some act of revenge, led to his health suffering seriously. Sleeplessness and high anxiety levels led to him suffering cardiac arrhythmias, ending up a patient himself.
But his conscience and professionalism would not allow him to turn a blind eye when the lives and dignity of patients were at stake. The General Medical Council‘s position is, after all, unequivocal:
Doctors in particular have a duty to act when they believe patient’s safety is at risk, or that patient’s care or dignity is being compromised. Our guidance sets out our expectation that all doctors will, whatever their role, take appropriate action to raise and act on concerns about patient care, dignity and safety.
He felt the weight of this duty keenly.
Colleagues and friends, however, seeing how he had been treated, were reluctant to expose themselves to the same retribution. Even when his case came to an Employment Tribunal, disclosure was limited. Witnesses were warned off from supporting him; they could neither appear nor have their witness statements seen by the Tribunal. And just four working days before the case was heard, the Trust issued an intimidating letter, telling Mr Duffy he was doomed to lose his case, and they would be pursuing him and his family for costs estimated at £108,000. However, if he would just agree to drop the case immediately in its entirety, remain silent, and agree to a non-disclosure clause, then they would not pursue costs.
To his great credit, he did not give in to these strong-arm tactics. And he was eventually exonerated, but the triumph was something of a pyrrhic victory. Even though this case was deemed an across-the-board failure on the part of the Trust and the clinicians concerned, nothing much has changed, Mr Duffy laments. Systemic failures are still ongoing; lives are still put at risk avoidably; whistle-blowers are still treated as lepers. Furthermore, he and his family have paid a colossal price for his integrity, courage and commitment to patient safety. In a massive understatement, he says he still struggles to believe the tactics adopted to silence him. I recognise that sense of incredulity and bewilderment all too easily.
The NHS, regulators and the law, all repeatedly claim the importance of safeguarding and speaking out to protect others; and they have a clearly stated duty of care to clinicians and patients. They offered this particular whistle-blower neither care nor protection. I can well imagine writing this book was cathartic for its author – at last he could present his case in its entirety. And I thank him sincerely for doing so. It was, in the end, therapeutic for me too – putting me clearly into the camp of ‘committed, responsible, caring individuals’ who summon up the strength to stand up to those who hurt or bully the vulnerable. The fact that it’s not a literary masterpiece, adds to its feeling of authenticity. It’s an unvarnished, from-the-heart, account. I can only admire the persistence and courage behind it, and wish the Duffy family well in the future.
Girl, Woman, Other
Did you know that last Thursday was ‘Super Thursday‘? – that day in the literary calendar when there’s a bonanza release of new books in time for Christmas. And this year, because of Covid-19 significantly delaying publication for authors across the board, as many as 600 new titles were released in 24 hours. 600! In one day!! SIX HUNDRED!! What hope is there for mid-or-below-mid-listers to be even noticed, huh? About as much as for a youngster with three C-grades-on-the-basis-of-teacher-assessment getting into Oxbridge, I’d say.
Seemed like a good week to home in on one title that has made the grade, big time: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo which I mentioned in my post two weeks ago – co-winning the Booker Prize with Margaret Attwood‘s The Testaments. Evaristo is the first black woman ever to achieve this distinction, and she comes across at interview as a bundle of energy and zeal and determination. Positively effervescing! Given the high profile racial issues have been receiving of late, it could be argued that this book – its subject matter and its author – must surely be falling into fertile soil.
Girl, Woman, Other is Evaristo’s eighth work of fiction, which took her six years to complete. It’s written in a hybrid form that falls somewhere between prose and poetry, without capital letters or full stops for sentences, or proper paragraphs, line breaks being used to control rhythm and beat. Sound confusing? I know, and yet … it’s very readable (says this Booker Philistine with wonder in her voice). Here’s a wee peek inside …
The novel follows twelve characters, most of them black British women, moving through the world in different decades, from different backgrounds, having different experiences, making different choices. Each character has her own chapter, but their lives overlap and they are all interconnected in some way. Some of them are close – friends, relatives, lovers – others simply visit the same theatre on the same night. But common threads pervade their stories: oppression, prejudice, discrimination, racism, injustice, sisterhood. Which come in all shapes and sizes. Typically of literary books, there’s no real plot, but the characters challenge the reader to consider British attitudes and practices towards black women through the ages, and more importantly, one’s own prejudices and preconceived ideas.
The primary character and lynch-pin is probably Amma, a black lesbian playwright, now in her 50s, whose new play is being produced at the National Theatre in London. Her vignette starts the book; her after-play party almost concludes it. This part of the story is semi-autobiographical: Evaristo was co-founder, with two other women, of the Theatre of Black Women in the early 1980s. In between, we meet eleven other characters who range through frustrated teacher, abused partner, sassy teenager, nonagenarian farmer, non-binary person, adopted waif, and so much more besides.
Did it work for me? On one level, yes. I found the unusual writing style surprisingly fit for purpose. The characters come alive through their patois/pidgin, their disjointed paragraphs, their learned experiences over time. I especially enjoyed Carole, a Nigerian girl who rises above her circumstances – poverty, gang rape at 13, schooling in an establishment that specialises in producing teenage mothers and early career criminals – to acquire a degree at Oxford amongst future prime ministers and Nobel Laureates, and goes on to set the world of finance alight. And yet still finds herself overlooked and suspected. Then there’s her indomitable mother Bummi, determined to make a success of life against the odds, setting up her own very professional and superior cleaning services company, gradually accepting her daughter’s steps away from her African heritage, but herself accepted by the young English high society man Carole marries. I couldn’t help but take to the sassy teenage LaTisha, the queen of backchat, spouting her unique brand of philosophical wisdom and researched facts, all the while emoting pure insolence – a special skill of hers according to her teachers. And I really took to Hattie, 93 years old, a great great grandmother, still living alone and running the family’s 800 acre farm, outspoken about modern hifalutin ideas like mobile phones and non binary identity and central heating.
But for me, their brief biographies lacked a certain overall depth, and I’d have liked more development of their individual and collective stories. That in itself is a remarkable reflection. Booker Prize winners usually leave me shrugging my shoulders and saying, So what? This one left me wanting more. I’d call that a success.