"Why is the incidental cliché of describing one student as 'chocolate-coloured' worthy of embarrassed public retraction?"

"Thou shalt not employ foodstuffs when describing non-white people. As the logic of this 'rule' is hardly self-evident, I did some online digging. Any mention of the edible in reference to the oppressed is apparently 'dehumanising,' 'objectifying' and 'commodifying' (like slavery) — as if, one contributor on Reddit explains, 'characters exist to be consumed or are otherwise disposable.' ... European complexions are often 'olive,' 'honeyed' or, less flatteringly, 'doughy'; their tastes can be 'white-bread,' meaning uninteresting, or vanilla,' meaning plain. We reach for comestibles to capture colour because common foods provide a shared visual vocabulary. Thus we often name colours after what we eat. Aubergine, mulberry, raspberry, peach, orange, sage, saffron, chestnut, pecan: they itemise not only our pantry but our paint samples. Seriously, if we depict something as a food-derived hue, do we imply that what we’ve described is consumable?"

From "Authors must stand up to the language police/The cancelling of writers who use phrases like ‘chocolate-coloured skin’ will only spiral if we appease the purity zealots" by Lionel Shriver (London Times). 

Shriver is commenting on the abject apology made by teacher/memoirist Kate Clanchy after she was criticized for using the phrases "chocolate-coloured skin" and "almond-shaped eyes." 

“I am not a good person,” she grovelled. “Not a pure person, not a patient person, no one’s saviour.”

Is that groveling or is it a rejection of the notion that a writer ought to pose as virtuous? Presenting oneself as good/pure/patient/redemptive will ruin a memoir. But here's something else that ruins a memoir: trite descriptions. And that's the real crime of "chocolate-coloured skin" and "almond-shaped eyes." 

If you're a decent writer, and you see words like that coming out of your fingertips, you need to jerk your hands off the keyboard and scream or laugh at yourself. The problem isn't maybe you're not a good person. It's you're a shitty writer. You'd better see the problem yourself and edit. 

And this is a teacher, describing her students. If you're going to make your reputation by talking about them, you'd damned well better acknowledge their individuality and use fresh and specific words if you're going to tell us how they look and require us to categorize them by race.

How would you like it if your child's teacher published a memoir in which your child was described with clichés — racial clichés?