A far-left Melbourne book shop that claims to be “anti-racist” has come under fire for refusing to stock White authors after a visit from an independent journalist.
Amplify Bookstore, which is located behind the Queen Victoria Market, describes itself as an “anti-racist social enterprise”, is co-owned by a Chinese woman and a half-Japanese woman, last year received an $11,250 grant from the city council, and donates to pro-Palestine activists.
“We’re an independent bookstore based in West Melbourne that specialises in books by BIPOC [black, indigenous and ‘people of colour’] authors. Here, you’ll only find books by BIPOC authors,” the store’s website states.
Journalist Drew Pavlou turned up at the store this week to ask if they would stock a book written by him, and was rejected on that basis that the owners consider Greeks and Greek Cypriots to be White.
This Melbourne bookstore “Amplify” only stocks non-white authors.
So I went there to ask if I could get a book in their store as somebody of Greek Cypriot ancestry.
Unfortunately she told me that they could not sell my book as I was too white for the store.
Shocking new… pic.twitter.com/Qg8b2cNklU
— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) August 27, 2026
“I’m going to go in and I’m going to ask them as a Greek man, can I be stocked, and am I considered White or am I considered ‘person of colour’,” he said before going in.
Once inside Mr Pavlou told the Asian woman behind the counter that he was a young author with a book coming out soon.
“I’m just wondering, so I’m Greek, would I be able to be stocked in the store? Would I be considered ‘person of colour’ or White?” he asked.
“Um, unfortunately I think we consider Greeks White,” the woman replied.
“Okay, Greek Cypriot though? Because I’m not mainland Greek, I’m from Cyprus which is an island closer to Turkey,” Mr Pavlou asked.
“I think it depends if you identify as a ‘person of colour’, but usually we consider Greek Cypriots as White,” the woman responded.
Mr Pavlou then shared the video on his social media accounts where he described the encounter as a “shocking new development in race science”, and later informed his followers he had discovered the store sells books by a Turkish Cypriot author.
The video sparked anger online, and even attracted the attention of X owner Elon Musk, who responded with an exclamation mark.
“If someone goes to a White country and wishes to exclude White people that’s an excellent justification to exclude them from all White countries permanently,” wrote one X user.
“Chinese people in Australia act the exact same as any other non-White minority with an antiwhite chip on their shoulder, just another swarm of people punching Whitey whilst he’s down and extracting all the benefit they can from him before he stands up again,” said content creator Zoomer Historian.
“Weird how it if were all White authors, people would be pulling their kids out of school to protest. But racism against Whites is okay?” wrote another.
The store later responded with an Instagram story saying “unfortunately it looks like the racists have found us again and are tanking our Google reviews with 1 star reviews”.
Co-owner Jing Xuan Teo told Broadsheet magazine last year that the store’s clientele was about 60% White, and complained that “people get really uppity about race” when asked about a video showing a customer objecting to the store’s antiwhite policy.
“Does he get upset every time he goes to a Thai restaurant and he can’t get Chinese food [or a] parma? You understand it’s a Thai restaurant and therefore you can only get Thai food,” she said.
Header image: Left, right, Mr Pavlou before and after entering the store (Instagram).
