Tags
Okay, am I the only black person in the world who missed this?
Just checked the Guardian’s website. A great granddaughter of Charles Darwin (?), Ruth Padel, has become the first woman to win Oxford University’s professor of poetry position, which is revered here in the UK.
However, Derek Walcott, the St Lucian poet, was the frontrunner to win the position until an anonymous person[s] sent a letter to 200 Oxford academics. The Guardian writes:
after a dossier detailing sexual harassment claims made against him by a Harvard student in 1982 was sent anonymously to 200 Oxford academics.
This is so bizarre. I had no effing idea that this happened. Walcott subsequently dropped out of the race, citing attempted character assasination.
Does anyone know more about this? According to the student who alleges sexual harassment, the following happened:
The student alleged that while discussing her work with Walcott after class, he asked her to “imagine me making love to you. What would I do? … Would you make love with me if I asked you?” After rejecting his approaches, she was then given a C grade in his class.
What the F? My feelings on the situation are like this – and especially as a feminist, innocent until proven guilty. He is a respected professor and world renowned. We must be careful not to support witch hunts and why didn’t the people come forward with their identification?
I should reiterate that the allegations were never proven, however, Walcott was sued for sexual harassment in ’95 by a student of Boston University.
Why do it anonymously like that? Smells like sabotage to me. This is very sad and disheartening.
An academic at Oxford said: “”I’m also aware that Byron’s life was not stainless, or TS Eliot’s for that matter – would we turn them down?” — Exactly! Byron’s life was definitely not perfect either.
I am in no way condoning sexual harassment. I think it is wrong and disgusting. However, the allegations were never proven. I don’t see how that should have affected Walcott doing his job.
afrospear.wordpress.com 
I’m of multiple minds on this issue. I met Walcott at conference about 10 years ago, and his reputation proceeded him in decidedly negative ways. (We female students were specifically warned not to be alone with him.) He was known to be pretty sleazy and was not at all apologetic about it. He had apparently asked for the male graduate student who was escorting him around campus be replaced by an attractive young woman.
I don’t really move in literary circles, but it’s my understanding that Walcott is well known for this type of behavior. I am unaware of specific allegations being proven, however. I also think that an anonymous letter is hardly the method to air such claims. If Walcott has demonstrably sexually harassed women, then that certainly bears on his fitness for a particular position or honor. There are some who feel that an artist’s work should be evaluated separately from personal character or behavior, but I don’t take that position.
One final thought: it seems incredibly odd that Walcott says he’s withdrawing over character assassination rather than denying the charges out right.
@evil_fizz, thanks for your input. It is a very bizarre and perplexing thing that has happened.
But why didn’t the women come forward?
Is Walcott married btw?
I don’t get this..since when propositioning a woman was tantamount to rape? So if a woman suggest to me that we should have sex, should I charge her for sexual assault? And most women..even hetereosexual feminists have suggested/asked/proposition men, for romantic favours (which might lead to sex) at one time or another.
White feminists like to single out black men as being sexually rapacious, and we very rarely hear about white men’s indiscretions. That comment matters because black sexuality is stereotyped and ideologised by the white owned/influenced attitude shaping media and cultural establishment – to the detriment of the black family.
So when I hear feminists like evil _fizz blather about her fear of Walcott, I only hear the grinding of the machines and see evidence our own dependence.
I just read the article myself. I have to agree with Ramiie on some points. The idea of sexual harrassment is a very white Euro/American concept. I just completed a graduate class in HR at an American university and I was a bit shocked at what constitutes sexual harrassment….most of it is what we in the Caribbean would call a regular Friday.
But under those laws Ramiie, a man can sue a woman who makes advances at you. The law protects both sexes equally.
However I do have to say that I have worked very closely with Mr. Walcott. (Obviously I don’t want to mention in what capacity for privacy’s sake) I am female, and I was very young at the time and I have to say he never made any advances on me, and in the end he grew to respect my work.
On the other hand I have two close female friends who experienced the opposite. In fact, in both instances, after they turned him down he soon wanted them fired.
He does make comments that can be regarded as off-putting. Growing up in the Caribbean though I have learned to simply shrug them off or come back with something witty.
@Jay-R Thanks for commenting. Your comment was very interesting. When u say he grew to respect your work, could you elaborate a little please?
I am very intrigued to hear more about what u wrote.
I studied for a semester with Derek in the playwrighting program at Boston around the time the woman who brought suit against him was there (I’m not remembering her, so I’m guessing I missed her, but I was there in the mid to late 90’s). He invited me to come and study with him after reading my work at a poetry workshop.
I was right around the age of the woman who brought the charges when this happened (she was 31 according to what I’ve read). If he was inclined, I would have been the perfect target for this kind of pressure — I was there by his invitation, star struck, traveling alone into Boston for the class, my husband on the road for a year… Nothing inappropriate from him — a lot of life force, definitely sexual energy (the kind that uptight Americans can get weird over), but I absolutely never, never felt pushed or cornered in any way by him.
He is tough, can be caustic, and takes no prisoners. (One of the funniest images of my life was the Keystone Kops routine that ensued one day when he was barking out orders to get a stage set up and students are running around banging into each other as we were trying to get chairs and rehearsal blocks and such into place.)
I have no idea if he was inappropriate with the woman who accused him. What gives me pause about it, though, is that as tough as he was, he adored it when people gave it back to him as good as they got. He would get this sparkle in his eye, and suddenly you were a peer.
I’ve run into harassers in my life, and they’ve all been into power over women — I truly did not have any experience of that with Derek. As intimidating as he could be (and he could be very intimidating!), he genuinely wanted to spar with equals. And when you did that with him, he thoroughly savored it and was delightful.
Here’s a piece from the woman who brought the suit, who is arguing on his behalf in the Oxford situation. It’s very interesting:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/poetry/article6288023.ece
All the best,
Leigh
Jay_R
You may think its OK to made your lurid allegations behind the screen of anonymity, but that hardly constitute fair, and it only adds to the smear. Without us being awae of all the facts you want us to think that even if it happened, you were entirely innocent and he was totally to blame. Wel that would work for the hardcore feminist anti male conspiracy theorists (there is no shortage of them on campus and in bookshops) and their obliging, hypocritical male friends, but it wont wash on the the likes of the silent majority like me.
BTW aulelia, you don’t seem to extend your thanks to the pro Walcott contributors. DO I detect a smidgen of hostility? MMM i think its perhaps symptomatic of your intellectual bankruptcy and sexual inadequacy.