Susan Carland Is Donating $1 To Charity For Every Abusive Tweet She Receives

Susan Carland and Waleed Ali at the GQ Men Of The Year Awards. Photo: Getty Images

Academic and former Muslim Australian of the Year, Susan Carland, is pledging to donate $1 dollar to charity for every abusive tweet she receives.

In two weeks alone she has already donated more than $1000.

"I started this project on a whim really," says Carland, who is also the wife of The Project host Waleed Aly.

"I just knew that I was getting a lot of hate on Twitter and sometimes I'd respond to them and sometimes I'd ignore them, and I felt like none of that really achieved anything. Engaging with them achieved nothing and ignoring them achieved nothing."

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"So I thought, there's all this hate going out, every time someone sent me a hate-filled tweet they're pushing hate or darkness into the world. Instead of just blocking it and ignoring it, how about I just repel it with something better, with something good."

"I thought, what's a good thing I can do? What is the complete antithesis of what these people are doing? They are putting so much ugly into the world. I thought what something is good I can put into the world."

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"By refusing to let the hate of others mould me, I am more secure and relaxed in my own identity than ever," she added in an op-ed in The Age.

"Their hatred of what they believe Muslims are has encouraged me to recommit to the beauty of my tradition … Their hate doesn’t define me; my beliefs do."

Dr Carland, an academic who teaches gender studies, sociology, and politics at Monash University, is not afraid to speak out on topics from the Islamic community to feminism.

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"Any Muslim certainly seems to attract a lot of hate online. And then being a Muslim woman - and when you're an unapologetic Muslim woman - you get a lot of hate," Dr Carland added.

While she admits that by drawing attention to it it will possibly make it worse, and potentially send her broke, she says "I suppose there's worse ways to go broke".
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