As one half of “Australia’s Muslim power couple”, Susan Carland is exposed to a daily onslaught of hate-filled tweets from social media trolls.
The respected Muslim sociologist, who is married to The Project host Waleed Aly, is bombarded by racial slurs, targeted because she wears a hijab and speaks openly about the rights of Australian Muslims.
But in an effort to bring about something positive from her experiences, Carland is donating $1 for every hateful tweet she receives.
Speaking about her decision, the highly-regarded academic said that she was “getting a lot of hate on Twitter. Sometimes I’d respond to them and sometimes I’d ignore them, and I felt like none of that really achieved anything.”
“How about I try to repel it with something better, with something good?
“What about for every hate-filled tweet I get, I donate a dollar to UNICEF? Children in need, it doesn’t get much nicer than that.”
Carland is a recent PhD graduate, and lectures at Monash University in Melbourne.
Although she was brought up in a Christian household, she decided to convert to Islam when she was 19 years old.
Some of the more horrifying tweets label Carland as “a filthy traitor” and accuse her of converting to a religion that is “a disgusting cult started by a child molesting war mongering slave keeper.”
One user spat “it’s your religion and deception that anger me and how you prey on innocent people (sic).”
Another disgusting tweet reads “@SusanCarland is stupid enough to convert to a religion that considers her half a man…”
That is just the tip of the iceberg; Carland has to ignore a daily barrage of insults.
This means that although she undertook the pledge a little more than two weeks ago, she has already donated over $1000 to the worthy cause.
“I started this project on a whim… I knew that I was getting a lot of hate on Twitter.”
“It’s actually been nice for me as well now, instead of every time I get something ugly on twitter, feeling sad or angry, now I’m like great, that’s another dollar, that’s another dollar.
“It might slowly be sending me broke, but I suppose there’s worse ways to go broke.”
