Zoya’s mother has experienced the most racism out of anyone in her family. Photo: Region.
Nobody enjoys selling things on Facebook Marketplace.
Between the bots sending spam messages, the unscrupulous haggling on already dirt-cheap items, and then the necessary evil of handing out your address to strangers, it’s enough to make you yearn for the good old days of paper classifieds.
But if you exist in the modern world, you’ll inevitably wind up advertising something online, and a recent experience I had helping my mum sell a few items uncovered an unexpected anxiety.
While I don’t love having people come to pick things up from my place – mostly because I’m a bit antisocial and also because it doesn’t always seem like the safest thing to invite randoms to my door – I’ve never had any issues. I have also never paused to consider whether my cultural background could result in some negative reaction. It’s genuinely never crossed my mind because, by and large, my experiences of racism have occurred outside of Canberra, and when I have had issues in Canberra, the physical environment I was in was usually a big factor (such as large public social events, or from strangers in the street etc).
So when the chairs that I had advertised on behalf of my mum were sold, I didn’t expect her to react with the caution she did.
Let me give some context: my mum wears the hijab, and as a result, she has experienced the most racism out of anyone in my family. She also still experiences racism, whereas my siblings and I experience less and less.
Partly, I think, this is because migrants with accents are more likely to be targeted, but I also think it is in large part due to her being so visibly different – as well as the hijab, she typically wears traditional clothes.
My parents also live on a rural property, with no neighbours visible, and mum was on her own that week, so it made complete sense for me to be there with her to meet the buyers just for basic safety.
But when I arrived, I was surprised to see her without her hijab on. Wearing the hijab is a lifelong commitment for my mother, and she always wears it in front of strangers or people who aren’t her immediate family. Not only does this align with her religious beliefs, but it’s also become a habit, the same way other people might feel strange in public without makeup or doing their hair.
Before I could say anything, mum touched her hair self-consciously and confessed, “I thought I shouldn’t wear my hijab, just in case … you know?”
Sadly, I did know.
There have been enough times in our lives when people have reacted badly to her hijab, including customers at our businesses and service people arriving to repair things. It was a valid concern – but also a sad one, because those incidents are definitely the minority of interactions we have had in what has otherwise been an incredibly welcoming community.
Mum is friends with the bank tellers and the post office staff, for whom she buys Christmas gifts every year. She has made connections with people from so many different cultures during her almost 30 years here, but inevitably, the times when she has been followed by men calling her racist names in the supermarket, or been treated with hostility in a cafe, or had someone walk right up to her to tell her that she should go back to where she came from clouds those positive experiences.
In the end, the buyer arrived with her son, and we had a lovely conversation – she told us about her cats and grandkids, and we bonded over our mutual love of Indian food. The next day, when I went to drop off the second chair that wouldn’t fit in her car, she took my arm and told me to tell my mum that she loved chatting with her.
The reality is that racism is insidious, and it sticks with us. But expecting the worst only leads to losing the potential for positive connections. Instead of trying to hide parts of ourselves to avoid prejudice, I want us to own our differences and assume the best – even if occasionally we’re forced to deal with the worst.
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