2yrs ago my son brought home this book from his primary school library. He was excited to show me & my heart sank as I flicked through. After finally meeting with librarian. Her & I spent every Monday for 2terms going through books. Removing those that clearly should not be there

at 1st the librarian was nervous & followed my judgement. But I made it clear, she & school needed to take ownership of the process. Slowly she became more confident & along the way started educating herself about how problematic so many books were in their library

We found many shocking books. This one by the far the worst. I've blocked out images to respect those inside. Overtime, the librarian became more motivated & interested to not just remove books but find more appropriate books & content for teachers & did a course with Anita Heiss

After 2terms we'd exhausted much of the books & I felt confident she'd continue the process. We gave a presentation to all teachers/principle & asked they continue to be vigilant. But to also learn from the books we removed. To educate themselves about why we kept or removed

This is what blak parents do. So many others have done the same. It shouldn't have to be this way. I know non-Indigenous ppl were motivated to do the same at their kids' school, state libraries & other institutions. But more needs to be done.

The narrative that was created about us by white people. (become farmers? err) Yes we found some gob smacking content. what was interesting is how the librarian found so much of the content shocking. of to me, there were no surprises, even the most disgusting content

I had Murri teachers & education workers asking if I could do the process at other schools. They were frustrated by what they found in the libraries too. I thought why can't there be an online resource for teachers to easily search for books to remove & add to that list?

It still seems like a simple idea. I wrote to Ed qld at the time with the concept. But they fobbed me off. Anyway, I had promised to put what we found up on twitter. Better late than never, lol, with the ISBN number to find it easy.

I'm also tweeting this as I'm fkng done with all the excuses by white ppl. Teachers being racist to blak kids & our kids having to take a stand to get any action. Netball teams leaving the only blak player out of game during 'Indigenous round'. It goes on & on.

Then roll out excuses about how they'll 'committ' to action & change. Do cultural competency. Like ? Just stop being fkn racist. Coz we don't have to 'meet you halfway' READ these goddam books. The system has been Captain Cooked for 2 centuries. wyple living it up at our expense

& if you think these books are all old. Try again. Coz the dodgy shit is still getting published. It's up to whyple to stop writing & ingesting this rubbish & demand better from each other. Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk. Do better migs