A member of the Buckingham Palace household has resigned after allegedly harassing a Black woman with a racist line of questioning at the Queen Consort’s reception. Ngozi Fulani, who runs a Black women’s domestic abuse charity in London, went to Twitter to reveal the incident she faced at the event. Fulani said she faced “prolonged racism” when Lady Susan Hussey allegedly asked her which part of Africa she comes from and continued to make assumptions about her background.
Ngozi Fulani is the founder of @Sistah_Space—an award winning non-profit supporting women and families affected by domestic abuse while ensuring cultural factors are considered and understood. This is her experience at Tuesday’s Buckingham Palace gender-based violence reception: https://t.co/XV7IjGmFJB
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) November 30, 2022
Shortly after arriving at the royal residence, Fulani said Hussey approached her, “put her hand in her hair” in front of colleagues and asked, “Where do you come from?”
Hussey allegedly followed up with more questions, asking “what nationality are you,” “where do your people come from” and “what part of Africa are you from?”
According to the Mirror, Hussey was one of the queen’s closest friends. She is also Prince William’s godmother.
“[What she did] was racism through and through. It was prolonged racism,” Fulani told the Mirror. “It was just done in the open in front of people, on a day when we should be working towards violence against women.”
BREAKING: A member of the Buckingham Palace household has resigned and apologised after “unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments” were made to Ngozi Fulani at the Queen Consort’s reception, the palace has said.
— Nads White. (@Nadine_Writes) November 30, 2022
When Hussey didn’t get the answer she was looking for from Fulani, she allegedly said, “I can see I am going to have a challenge getting you to say where you’re from. When did you first come here?”
“I am a British national, my parents came here in the 1950s,” Fulani said.
“Oh, I knew we’d get there in the end, you’re Caribbean,” Hussey allegedly replied.
Fulani followed up with a correction.
“No, I am of African heritage, Caribbean descent and British nationality,” she said.
Despite the awkward conversation, Fulani said she decided not to leave the event early because she wanted to represent her organization.
“I just wanted to leave, I felt very unwelcome. I’ve never lived anywhere else, I’ve only lived in Britain,” she said.
“So someone to come and tell me, someone who has been in the royal household, for her to kind of just insist that I’m not British — those were not her words but that’s the implication — I don’t know how to process that,” she said.
