NGOZI Fulani, the domestic abuse campaigner at the heart of the royal race row, has told GB News she felt she was being interrogated by Lady Susan Hussey at the Buckingham Palace reception this week.
She told GB News: “I am still processing it all, but I’m doing okay. We’ve had a lot of support and a lot of understanding. So that’s really helped.
Asked about the lack of a direct apology, she said: “Well, I understand that they reached out to another organisation to contact us and we haven’t received anything directly. But we’ve recently learned that they now have access to us and they will be reaching out and we look forward to that.
“Sistah Space is about resolution. So that’s key for us. So we want to do anything that will, you know, just bring a positive outcome….
“Our focus is on those who have been affected by domestic and sexual abuse. People can say what will happen as a result of this. Preferably, we would have been able to just focus on that which we were invited to the Palace to do, which is to raise awareness around domestic abuse, so that really must remain our focus.”
Reflecting on what happened, she told Mark Longhurst on GB News: “So let me be clear, this happened over about five or six minutes. So when she asked where I’m from, I said Sistah Space, because obviously it’s about domestic abuse, and there’s a lot of agencies there. So I thought she meant where are you from in terms of ‘who you representing?’
“Then she said, ‘no, where are you from?’ So we said Hackney, because that’s where we’re based. And then she said, ‘where are you from? So I said, ‘me? I’m born here’ and then she said ‘and where are you really from?’ So this went on.
“If you want to find out something about somebody you ask a question once or twice, once you’ve got the answer, you move on, right?”
Ngozi said she was also left confused by Lady Hussey’s decision to touch her hair.
“The first thing she did as well was to take my hair and move it out of the way. That’s the first thing. There was no ‘hello’, no, nothing. I’ve never done that. I really think that we need to respect people’s personal space. And then she just proceeded to ask what she did.”
“Had she just kept asking the question, that would have been one thing, but what sealed it for me is when she said, ‘oh, I can see I’m going to have a challenge with you’. So that already shows me you’re trying to get somewhere.
“And then she finishes when she’s learned that my parents came here in the 50s as part of the Windrush generation, she then said, ‘ah, I knew we’d get there in the end’. So it was something she was driving at.
“It’s not acceptable, and it’s uncomfortable for people to hear. Trust me, it’s much more uncomfortable to be in a space and be denied your nationality until they get the answer they want.”
“We can think about every excuse we want to, but unless we deal with this uncomfortable conversation, it is going to continue and there will be no winners here. We need to put the focus back on the 16 days of activism. This should be about women affected by domestic or other kinds of abuse.
“I should not have to go into that space, having been invited because of the work that I do, and because we talk about issues around race, gender and abuse, that’s the last place I expected that to happen.
“So there are those who will not understand but I’m very clear about what happened. And so is she because there was no rebuttal. She…resigned and the Palace accepted it.”
“This wasn’t a very nice experience.
“I am still processing this. It is ugly, not only for everybody else, but for us, too….
“I just think wherever racism is, it’s an ugly conversation, but it’s one that must be held.”
