Multiple Translators Considered Too White Or Too Male To Translate Young Black Female’s Poem

Amanda Gorman, a creative young author and poet, stepped into the spotlight with a poem which she wrote and performed at President Biden’s inauguration, The Hill We Climb. Immediately following the inauguration, Gorman received several offers and opportunities, including a modeling job and various speaking and publishing requests.

Her now-famous poem, The Hill We Climb, was to be translated into Catalan by an accomplished translator from Spain, Victor Obiols, who has translated authors such as Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. Upon completion of the poem translation project, as well as a forward by Oprah Winfrey, the publisher, US based Viking Books, rejected the translation and told the Barcelona publisher Univers that they wanted a translator who was “a woman, young, activist and preferably black.”

“…The company received a request from the US group Viking Books for the work to be carried out by a female activist with African-American origins, if possible.”

This makes absolutely no sense. Zero sense. How does skin color affect your ability to translate? And don’t woke progressives believe that gender is a meaningless and oppressive social construct? So why does the gender of the translator matter at all?

Victor Obiols likewise saw the absurdity in the rejection of his translation, saying,

“They did not question my abilities. But if I cannot translate a poet because she is a woman, young, black, an American of the 21st Century, neither can I translate Homer because I am not a Greek of the eighth century BC. Or could not have translated Shakespeare because I am not a 16th-Century Englishman.”

This bizarrely racist translator request comes on the heels of another strange and racially charged situation involving another Gorman translator.

At 29 years old, renowned Dutch author, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld was the youngest author to win the International Booker prize in 2020. As a self-identified non-binary (they/them) activist for gender equality and mental health, they were called a “dream candidate” to translate Gorman’s poem.

Following the announcement that Rijneveld would translate for Gorman, an opinion writer criticized the selection, calling it “incomprehensible” that a white translator was chosen to translate the words of a black poet. She suggested they should have chosen a “spoken word artist, young, a woman and unapologetically black.”

“I’m not saying a black person can’t translate white work, and vice versa. But not this specific poem of this specific orator in this Black Lives Matter area, that’s the whole issue.”

So Rijneveld stepped back from the translation, ultimately publishing a poem in which they concurred that they were too white to serve as translator to Gorman in today’s society.

This is the most absurd situation. Can you even imagine in a young white poet refused to work with a highly qualified and renowned author or translator based solely on their gender or their skin color?

This brings to mind the most recent Super Bowl National Anthem, which was perhaps one of the most beautiful and inspiring renditions I’ve ever witnessed. Not because of the musical talent, although that was certainly impressive. But because of the sign language translator who performed along with the musicians.

This man gave me chills. I felt every bit of the emotion and passion he sought to portray in his translation of that incredible song. Can you even imagine if the musicians had refused to allow him to translate because of his skin color, gender, or social activities? The world would have missed out on this incredible and inspiring piece of performance art.

That’s one of the many reasons why racism is so abhorrent.

Who knows how many incredible things the world will miss out on now that woke progressives have socially regressed and decided that racial discrimination and racial profiling are once again acceptable.