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The owner of Robinsons Bookshops (aussie.zone)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[-] [email protected] 89 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

What I don't understand is this. The person owns the bookshop and is complaining about what is on the shelves.

Aren't they in charge of what they stock?

If they feel so fervently about this why are they stocking (and I assume selling) these books that offend them so much?

If you feel this strongly, empty your shop of all those works that offend you and only stock things that meet you approval and stop your bitching online about something you control...

[-] [email protected] 52 points 5 months ago

But, if they did that, how could they then show the world how much of a victim they are?

Also, I'm amusing myself by using they/them pronouns for this person because I am 100% certain they'd hate it.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Weaponised pronouns.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago

If they feel so fervently about this why are they stocking (and I assume selling) these books that offend them so much?

Because far-right reactionaries don't read and they'd go broke overnight.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I guess their response if you said to this to them would be that they actively are trying to do exactly as you suggest, hence the posts and with regard to the list of materials they seem to be sick of seeing, they'd probably say this is what they continue to be offered from publishers when they try to stock their shop making the task difficult.

I don't think from the posts alone there's necessarily a logical flaw or hypocrisy to what they're saying, but certainty an inflated sense of their own idea of what public opinion is and a very distorted understanding of what literature outside of the narrow confines of what they deem acceptable is for and about.

I think they maybe get some sense of how fucked up the sentences their position requires them to write sound when they have to clarify what they mean by recasting the thing they reject as something else that sounds worse, hence "inclusion" becomes "anti-white exclusion" because even they perhaps realised that it's hard to sound like the good guy preaching against hate and division when you find yourself saying you don't want any books featuring inclusion.

[-] [email protected] 66 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

wheelchair

Fucking hell they really do hate any kind of Other don't they

[-] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the groups they oppose are the same groups the Nazis killed.

[-] [email protected] 58 points 5 months ago

Something to keep in mind next time you're thinking of supporting a local book seller. Luckily there's other options around.

[-] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago

American here. This really makes me think twice before supporting a local business. Its not really something i have thought of or considered before. Independant book stores tend to be more liberal. But i see otherwise here. Wow.

[-] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

There was an independent coffee roaster I used to buy from that started referring to the pandemic as a "plandemic" then included graphic religious propaganda with their orders.

And small businesses are sometimes worse in terms of wage theft and ignoring labour laws, probably because they think they are small enough that nobody will notice.

But it's a case by case basis, of course.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Craziness comes in all shapes and forms, I'm surprised as well; As you're right that bookstores generally do seem more progressively minded.

I'd feel confident in saying many others are completely fine to shop at.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

I don't disagree that this is infuriating, but bigotry isn't "craziness", it's a well established system of oppression that greatly benefits some over others. We can only tackle it once we acknowledge what it is.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I think the fact it's viewed as craziness is good tbh.

When I was young this wasn't really a thing to talk about. It was just how things were.

That people look at them and think what a stupid naxi is great.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The fact it’s viewed as "craziness" is ableist, as well as counterproductive.

Conflating harmful actions with lack of intelligence* does everyone a disservice. To suggest that “stupidity”* that is what makes people act badly undermines any real accountability. The causes of problematic behavior rarely have anything to do with mental acuity, and we can’t properly address harmful behavior while being so reductive about its causes. Carelessness, bias, hatred, greed, closed-mindedness, indifference – these are the traits that lead to oppression. Our intelligence* is not the issue so much as our sense of compassion and justice.

source
*or mental illness

[-] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

I would argue that intelligence plays a huge role in things like racism. You can see a clear divide when you take into account education levels.

You don't have to be disabled to have low intelligence and id argue conflating those two is ableist.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

And I would state for a fact that you're being an ableist (not only in your insistence of intelligence being related to racism, or the ridiculous idea that education levels have anything to do with so called intelligence, but also in your framing of disability as a negative thing which I should not be calling people. As a disabled person - fuck you), and also harming the fight against racism, a system which is not only perpetuated by people throughout society, but was created by those in power, who are almost never what you would call "stupid".

You can continue to double down in defence of your own ego, or you could challenge your bias, admit that you don't know everything about everything, and actually listen to people who know what they're talking about:

https://liminalnest.wordpress.com/2018/06/23/intelligence-is-a-myth-on-deconstructing-the-roots-of-cognitive-ableism/

https://affinitymagazine.us/2018/01/08/stop-using-intelligence-based-insults-if-you-care-about-disabled-people/

https://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/23/ableist-word-profile-intelligence/

https://web.archive.org/web/20230605065733/https://ollibean.com/intelligence-is-an-ableist-concept/

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I'm also disabled and my disabilities are 100% negative. They fucking suck and make my life very difficult.

Intelligence isn't a myth. My partner made me watch love island.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Who would have thought that learning leads to a more progressive outlook on life?

[-] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

European here. Yeah small business owners can be major assholes as well. Here in Europe I’ve experienced more racism from small independent mom and pops, not only book shops, than in large corporate chains. And these shops are still surprised that people rather shop online.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I used to order pizza from a small local business until I went there in person and all 3 TVs in the place had Newsmax at full volume. Last time I went there.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Why would one example, not even from your country, make you think twice? Get a grip.

[-] [email protected] 46 points 5 months ago

The thing I love about books are that they are machines for empathy.

You get to inhabit the lives of other people, see through their eyes and hear their thoughts.

It's an out of one body and into another body experience.

During my life I have been a pirate, a clown, a cyborg, and alien....I have been male and female and something that was neither or both.

The last thing, given the choice, I want to read about is myself. I already know that story.

[-] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago

I wish I lived in Melbourne so I could not go to that bookshop.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

I live on the other side of the world, that just makes it even easier not to go.

[-] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago

Damn, what a flammable business to be a Nazi in.

[-] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

We need more positive male lead characters?

Has this person actually read any books?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I read books with anti heros, they're not great role models

[-] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago

So basically doesn't want to stock any book that might challenge and develop her opinions and beliefs. Is she removing religious books as well? I like to read stuff that I disagree with, that's how we learn

[-] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago

Doesn't support things that divide people and make Australians hate each other. Accuses people of having a "woke agenda".

[-] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago

positive male lead characters, traditional nuclear white family stories, just white kids on the cover, no indiginous art/history or non-cishet...

Fascists want all art to be Leave It To Beaver repeats from their childhood.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

yeah why can't we have such classic great writers any more like Oscar Wilde, Sappho or August Wilson?

You know, straight white men.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It’s made the mainstream press, so looks like she’s doing a good job of trashing her brand…

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/robinsons-bookshop-owner-apologises-amid-backlash-over-white-kids-comments-20240128-p5f0mh.html?btis

[-] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

she completely gives the game away when she says even being aware of indigenous people's history will automatically foster hate.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

I wonder if she has any copies of Setting Fires with Electrical Timers in stock

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Lol. Thats cute. Because what happens in one country... Could never happen in another? Expand your thoughts.

this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024

213 points (97.3% liked)

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