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To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ngozi Fulani and Lady Susan Hussey: Much Ado About Something Here?
Baba Kadiri,
Since you are one for deep reading ( and voraciously too) on matters that interest you, could you please tell us whether or not the one " with the racist marrow deeply entrenched in her bone" is featured in Harry and Meghan's books, especially the latest one about them : Revenge : Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors.
I'm wondering, because deep down, if she is the way that you say she is, then it's possible that she must have clashed with Meghan earlier on and possibly with Harry too - Ngozi Fulani possibly reminding her of an earlier clash with Meghan, the upstart ( wanting to start calling the shots at Buckingham Palace ) and Baroness H is now safely out of the way because of this incident. Harry's Meghan too. Safely out of the way.
The world - especially the Black and White world and the relations in between, " the holy places where the races meet " has not changed much, but the rest has changed considerably since she first started working at Buckingham Palace. Don't forget that some people who know her say that she's slightly deaf, which means that she probably didn't hear what Lady Fulani was saying and therefore had to ask again, and again. On top of that she could have been suffering from other old age afflictions such as short term memory (different from long-term memory, and very different from your own phenomenal elephant memory
Si, if I may, the plot thickens: Add to that menu of innocent possibilities the possibility of mistaken identity…" haven't I seen you somewhere before ?" Me? Yes, YOU! Etc and who are you, and where are you from? Is that your legal name etc? He, she , we, they might fit into any number of roles being hallucinated by paranoid or even racist conspiracy theorists.
Black people want to take over Buckingham Palace! Our friend wants to be appointed speech writer for His Majesty Charles III (and because there are no blue-blooded, capable real Englishmen around with the necessary training in basic courtesy, Buckingham Palace Professor of His Majesty's English with a mouth sweeter than honey, thinks that he's the best man for the job. Another case of Mistaken identity ( in loving memory of Pa Michael Imoudu what colonialism has done to some of us.)
Taj & Toumani : Queen BeeThank you, Menahem Hamelberg, for posting the transcript of interrogation of Ms Ngozi Fulani by Lady Susan Hussey at Buckingham Palace. Ms Ngozi Fulani is the founder of Sistah Space, a charity organisation based in UK and working against violence on women and girls. When the Queen Consort, Camilla, hosted an event on violence against women and girls Ms Fulani's organisation, Sistah Space, was invited to the venue, Buckingham Palace. Consternated Lady Hussey did not welcome the presence of Ms Ngozi Fulani and she subjected her to psychological torture, the greatest and most harmful violence against any human being. According to Menahem Hamelberg's posted transcript, questions and answers were eight each. For simple illustration, let us list the questions numerically as 1a, 2a etc, and the answers as 1b, 2b, etc. Thus, question 1a from Lady Hussey (where are you from?) was correctly answered in 1b by Ms Fulani, I am from Sistah Space which is the name of the organisation she was there to represent. Lady Hussey's question 2a was, "No, where do you come from?" Ms Fulani replied innocently in 2b thus, "We're based in Hackney," suggesting to any normal thinking person to know that Sistah Space, which Ms Fulani was there to represent is based in Hackney. Then in a hostile and furious tone Lady Hussey repeated her question from 2a in 4a, "Where do you come from?" And Ms Fulani politely answered in 4b, "Here, in UK." The racist blood running in her veins made Lady Hussey to howl at Ms Fulani in 5a, "NO, but what nationality are you?" In spite of the provocative questions, Ms Fulani replied in a cultured manner in 5b, " I am born here and I'm British. As if to say being born in Britain does not make one a British, Lady Hussey exclaimed in her question 6a, "No, but where do you really come from, where do your people come from?" Ms Fulani retorted in 6b, "My people, lady, what is this?" There, Lady Susan Hussey should have stopped but with the racist marrow deeply entreched in her bone she continued to taunt Ms Fulani. Thus, in her question 7a, Lady Hussey exclaimed, "Oh! I can see Iam going to have a challenge getting you to say where you're from. When did you first come here?" Yet, in her answer 5b, Ms Fulani had told Susan Hussey, the down-to-earth racist that, "I am born here and I'm British."
I really appreciate Ms Ngozi Fulani's extreme patience and tolerance in withstanding the horrible interrogations from Lady Susan Hussey. Ms Fulani whose organisation is fighting against violence on women and girls had suffered psychological torture from a fellow woman though of no colour. Consequently, Buckingham Palace officially stated, "We take this incident extremely serious and have investigated immediately to establish the full facts. In this instance, unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments have been made. We have reached out to Fulani on this matter, and we are inviting her to discuss all elements of her experience in person if she wishes." The 83-year-old Lady Susan Hussey was retired from her life-duty employment at Buckingham because of the incident. However, turn the other cheek African apologists say, the Octogenarian should be re-employed and made to undergo training in cultural sensitivity. And there is sense in that suggestion as much as sending a fingerless lepper to undergo training in wearing rings on fingers!!S. Kadiri
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Sent: 04 December 2022 11:25
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ngozi Fulani and Lady Susan Hussey: Much Ado About Something Here?Sonny Rollins (Earl Coleman) : Two Different Worlds
One thing that we can be sure of is that it's not the sort of mishap that's ever likely to take happen at e.g. the Nobel Banquet , always a very international gathering, the seating so well pre-arranged, a festive occasion followed by some ballroom dancing, cheek- to-cheek , till the wee hours of the morning…
Methinks that we've got to be equally fair to both the oversensitive Ngozi Fulani and Baroness Hussey. The context , place and time, not the Isle of Man, Yaounde, Dakar or the Republic of the USA but early in December 2022, the stars shining at a Buckingham Palace reception in Merry England, and if we're lucky we could possibly view the whole event from surveillance cameras or on Sky TV, to note exactly what happened. I think that we've got to give the Baroness a break: Here comes the high-stepper Ngozi in style, hair piled up a mile high and looking like a thing that the cat brought in from outer space, the poor Baroness still in grief and not too good at remembering new faces and names must still have other odd memories of e.g Meghan - another one from somewhere or other , and Ngozi is an honoured guest in the palace and under royal protection no less than King Charles III saying to President Buhari ( as reported by Mr. President himself) you have a home in the UK, please feel at home: you're most welcome.
But be generous, let's make some allowance for the Baroness' pedigree, her upbringing, and age, curiosity, an inevitable part of her human nature, who does she want to get to know better?
Ngozi!
What could be so wrong with her persistence? According to the transcript
Lady SH: "Where are you from?"
Ms Fulani: "Sistah Space."
SH: "No where do you come from?
Ms Fulani: "We're based in Hackney."
SH: "No, what part of Africa are YOU from?"
Ms Fulani: "I don't know, they didn't leave any records."
SH: "Well, you must know where you're from, I spent time in France. Where are you from?"
Ms Fulani: "Here, UK"
SH: "No, but what Nationality are you?"
Ms Fulani: "I am born here and am British."
SH: "No, but where do you really come from, where do your people come from?"
Ms Fulani: "'My people', lady, what is this?"
SH: "Oh I can see I am going to have a challenge getting you to say where you're from. When did you first come here?"
Ms Fulani: "Lady! I am a British national, my parents came here in the 50's when…"
SH: "Oh, I knew we'd get there in the end, you're Caribbean!"
Ms Fulani: "No lady, I am of African heritage, Caribbean descent and British nationality."
If Ngozi had lost her cool and opted for a tit-for-tat, the dialogue could have gone something like this:
Lady SH: "Where are you from?"
Ms Fulani: "I was born in England , like our Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Where are you from? "
Lady SH: "I beg your pardon? "
Ms Fulani: " I asked, "Where are you from ?"
At which point Baroness Hussey would have probably shrieked or hissed under her breath, " For goodness sake, can't you tell I'm British?"
Ms Fulani : " Cheers! So , we're sisters!"
--On Sunday, 4 December 2022 at 09:37:24 UTC+1 toyinfalola wrote:
Farooq left the site because of Cornelius!
Cornelius also, for some time, left the site because of Farooq.
It is by God's intervention that Ken and Gloria are still with us.
One day, I will receive a medal for keeping together a million voices!!!!!!!
From: 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday, December 4, 2022 at 2:15 AM
To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>, Yoruba Affairs <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>, Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>, Farooq Kperogi <farooq...@gmail.com>, Moses Ochonu <moses....@vanderbilt.edu>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ngozi Fulani and Lady Susan Hussey: Much Ado About Something Here?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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