Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ngozi Fulani and Lady Susan Hussey: Much Ado About Something Here?

Dear Chambi:

Sorry, I almost missed your intervention here. But I cannot agree more with your position that, "Racism is sometimes — if not quite often — experienced differently across the Atlantic Divides. My own experience of racism as a student in the UK, RSA, and the US are not the same. . ."

You are right on the money, my friend. Thanks to the link that Gloria sent to me yesterday, where I learned that in "America, racism is in the water." Elsewhere, it is in the way you greet or fail to greet the folks on the other race isle. I was at a Board meeting one day when the Chairman introduced my friend, an African American, to make his presentation. My friend stood at the podium and looked at the chairman straight in the eye, and in his soft but firm voice said, and I paraphrase him, "Dr. X, thanks for introducing me; please feel free to call me by my first name at any time, but I insist on you addressing me by my title of Dr. Y today because that was how you have introduced everyone else except me. I just don't appreciate it . . ." It was on that day that I realized that title recognition could also be an attribute of racism. I learned a big lesson from my friend. And I recall this story to agree with you. Even racism (and its expression) has its eclectic character.

In all honesty, I would still love to hear from the Baroness. I think the story has been from Ms. Ngozi Fulani and her enthusiasts. Hearing from the former would shield us from being victims of the danger of a single story or even worse still, victims of what the Yoruba call "Ìròhìn Òkèèrè" (News Told From a Distance), which, they as say, often adds one thing, or takes away one thing.

Thankfully,

MOA

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On Sunday, December 4, 2022 at 07:24:33 AM EST, Chambi Chachage <chachagechambi@gmail.com> wrote:

Michael,

Racism is sometimes — if not quite often — experienced differently across the Atlantic Divides. My own experience of racism as a student in the UK, RSA, and the US are not the same. So why not defer to Ngozi Fulani et al.?

The article by Mandu Reid who was there sums up their experience with racism — she writes:

"At a reception on Tuesday to honour those working to end violence against women and girls, I witnessed racist remarks from a member of the royal household directed at my friend and fellow activist, Ngozi Fulani. Lady Hussey's prolonged interrogation about where Ngozi was really from, what her nationality was and where her people were from, was not – as many people have insisted to me over the past 24 hours – the kind of well-meaning curiosity that all of us experience from time to time (though it's possible that Hussey believed that it was).… I see that 'She's 83' is now trending on Twitter, imploring us to leave this nice old lady alone, a stance that adds a dash of ageism to the racism that has pervaded much of the commentary" — 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/01/lady-hussey-resign-monarchy-race-remarks-institution?fbclid=IwAR35II99aOyrhVcXvAczveMC5w5e9pCfh8QeK-H3lfoiOtWGfzE08xV3rFs&mibextid=S66gvF

May you not be gagged, but "stand corrected".

Best Regards,

Chambi

On Sun, Dec 4, 2022 at 3:14 AM 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Ngozi Fulani and Lady Susan Hussey: Much Ado About Something Here?

I wonder where the  agents provocateur of our USA-Africa Dialogue group are when I truly need them the most. I know Oluwatoyin is too busy, fully preoccupied with the intellectual excavation of our heritages – the dilapidated states of our ivory towers, the desecration of our palaces' celebrations of entry, and the endangerment of the historical landscapes of our cultural relics. I can forgive Oluwatoyin. But how come we have not seen Ken Harrow express his usually objective and deep analyses, on this particular issue? I have not read something coming from Cornelius whose humorous interjections often kept me thinking and rethinking the realities of issues that we had thought we could walk by and ignore. Farooq has not spoken for some time; neither have I heard much from Moses from Vanderbilt. I miss those voices. Could it be that one or more of these people have not heard of the brouhaha coming from the Buckingham Palace concerning the alleged racist interrogation of Ngozi Fulani, the CEO of the domestic violence charity against black women, called Sister Space? Here is the synopsis: It so happened that Lady Susan Hussey the godmother of Prince William insistently asked Ms Fulani where exactly she came from. The latter felt offended and walked away from her role as one of the advisors for the Palace. I forgot the cartoon character that used to ask the question, shaking, "Am I missing something?"

I know racism when I see it. In fact, if you are a black man, and you lived in America for more than four decades, as I have, and you still don't recognize racism, then you have a serious problem, which might be psychological, if not psychiatric. And, trust me, when I see one that is a mere mirage of objective reality, I also almost always recognize it.

Some thirty-something years ago, in my past American life, I directed a Title VI center, where one of my primary responsibilities was to travel or send folks around the country correcting biases, myths and stereotypes relating to Africa and the peoples of African descent. This was the peak of the Ethiopian crisis, and insults and assaults were being thrown left, right and center about Africa and Africans. I can't count how many times my office was called as expert witnesses in court cases relating to asylums, race matters and other ethnic imbroglios. In all reality, this case of Ms Fulani would certainly not fall within the paradigm of biases and stereotypes. For years, all I wore were Nigerian attires, even if I had to wear winter coats over them in the frozen tundras of the Upper Midwest winters. I expected folks to ask me where I came from. I looked (still look) very African/Nigerian/Yoruba. My accent never changed (I know this could not be the case with Ms Fulani given that she was born in the UK). She would be like one of my children (all four of who are now adults, born and raised in the US). One of my daughters takes pride in introducing herself as a Nigerian American. In my humble opinion, Ms Fulani overstretched the racist implication of her dialog with Lady Hussey. It almost reminds me of a "big" case in which my office was called upon when an African American woman sued a fellow worker to court because the colleague, a white woman, came to work one day wearing an African attire. I did not go as an expert witness but sent a note, for which the litigant called me an "Oriole" a euphemism for a black man whose soul has been sold to the white establishment (black outside, white in the inside- just like the oriole cookies). For crying out loud, if Ms Fulani had answered the octogenarian the very first time she asked for where she came from, and stated that she was Briton but of African or Nigerian extraction, her parents being Nigerians, she would have there and then nipped the matter in the bud. Honestly, I sympathize with Lady Hussey and if I were a counselor to Buckingham Palace, I would request that she be restored with apologies, but just made to undergo training in cultural sensitivity, knowing full well that there would always be some folks out there waiting to make a big deal out of issues of this nature. Whatever you say could and would always be misconstrued as offensive. She would learn to stay away from such folks in verbal exchanges - a sile and/or a handshake would truncate explosive altercations of this magnitude. As my father would always say, "The most difficult person for you to wake up is someone who is pretending to sleep."  Even in Nigeria, Ngozi Fulani's name would invoke curiosity. I don't know how to ask for her ethnicity without becoming a lightning rod for thunder and brimstone.

Mind you, I am not minimizing Ms Fulani's experience. She probably might have seen enough of verbal exchanges that brought back memories of unpleasant human hate. But, I am sorry, in my judgment, this one does not fit in that category. It is a classical case of making a mountain out of a proverbial molehill.

I stand corrected.

Yep, feel free to call me anything and ask where the heck I came from - I'm African/Nigerian/Yoruba (and, lest I forget, a naturalized American). I won't be offended. But, in the words of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1972), please "Don't Gag Me!"

Michael O. Afolayan

(Transitioning in London, UK)

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