65

Victoria’s oldest independent bookshop has apologised after its owner called for more picture books with “just white kids on the cover” and claimed that the chain would stop stocking “woke agenda” content that divided people.

Susanne Horman, the owner of Robinsons Bookshop chain, posted a series of tweets in December where she called for an “substantial shift” in Australian publishing, arguing the focus should be in line with public opinion, requests for books and “for what is good”.

“What’s missing from our bookshelves in store?” Horman wrote in one tweet, before the account was deleted. “Positive male lead characters of any age, any traditional nuclear white family stories, kids picture books with just white kids on the cover, and no wheelchair, rainbow or indigenous art, non indig [sic] aus history.”

Another post read: “Books we don’t need: hate against white Australians, socialist agenda, equity over equality, diversity and inclusion (READ AS anti-white exclusion), left wing govt propaganda. Basically the woke agenda that divides people. Not stocking any of these in 2024.”

In a Facebook post on Sunday night, Robinsons Bookshop said the comments had been “taken out of context” and “misrepresented the views” of the company.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] rainynight65@feddit.de 37 points 7 months ago

I love how the response to backlash against comments like this is almost always along the lines of 'sorry if you're offended' and 'the comments were taken out of context'.

These comments by Horman are very clear, they have plenty of context on their own, and they give me a pretty good picture of what kind of person the owner is. It's enough for me to make sure I don't set foot into their shops if I am ever in Melbourne.

[-] BadlyDrawnRhino@aussie.zone 17 points 7 months ago

The first tweet is almost satirical, so if it had stopped there I might have bought it being "taken out of context".

I'm curious to know what possible context would make those tweets okay.

[-] hangonasecond@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

The context where the person reading them is also a bigot?

I agree, it was incredibly clear that no one should support "Victoria's favourite bookshop" anymore. The one that really got me was the line about children's books needing to have more white people, nuclear families and less indigenous art on the covers. Sure, white kids don't have any media to look to for role models except for 95 fucking percent of media out there.

I really hope this business crashes and burns and we stop seeing cultivation of this kind of hate in this country.

[-] Scubus@sh.itjust.works 13 points 7 months ago

I mean, it mentions "socialist agenda"

That's a buzzword for "I'm a dumbass"

[-] HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 months ago

Same goes for Anti-Woke.

Funny how those people tend to be the same who tell the 'sheep' to 'wake up'.

[-] Lath@kbin.social -5 points 7 months ago

The context where there was a reasonable study without political bias made that proved there was an "anti-white" movement or intentional pandering for profit.
Hard to find one though it seems, else it would already be in the news.

[-] rainynight65@feddit.de 10 points 7 months ago

There is no such study because there is no 'anti-white movement'. Diversity, equity and inclusivity are not zero-sum games, even if reactionaries like to pretend they are.

[-] fosstulate@iusearchlinux.fyi 0 points 7 months ago

Diversity, equity and inclusivity are not zero-sum games

In the sense of individuals treating each other humanely day-to-day, sure. But when viewed through an employer lens, it's a collection of strategies whose purpose is to maintain poor conditions for the coalescence of labor solidarity. There's nothing non-zero-sum about that.

this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
65 points (95.8% liked)

Australia

3507 readers
162 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS