We've had some difficult conversations as part of Pushing the Boundaries.
It's impossible to talk about all of them here. But this one in particular stands out. It was with a young woman in the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham.
"I grew up around here and my family is here; I moved away with children when the marriage ended. I moved to another area of Birmingham. After a while I stopped wearing the niqab as I did not feel safe.
"My sister has had water thrown on her. She did not report it but I think what if they are practising given all the recent acid attacks? Days after the Brexit vote a man walked towards me in the street clapping football style saying, 'You’re going home'. Another time a man on the bus made comments saying 'f***ing go back – the place is overrun.' Sometimes I want to take a potato peeler and peel off my skin.
"When you report a hate crime to the police they say: What happened? What words were used? Are you sure? And this is off putting, it should not be up to the police to decide what is a hate crime or to tell you what you ‘saw, felt or heard’. It is the victim that knows."
We have fed in the concerns of this participant and participants like her to the police, housing associations, and Birmingham City Council.
If there's anything you think we should be doing to tackle the issues underlying these experiences, leave a comment below.
