Let’s check in with our favourite cosplayer Ngozi Fulani. If you can’t remember who Ngozi Fulani is, she is the lady who accused Lady Hussey, friend of the recently departed Queen of England, of racism.
Ngozi Fulani is a London born lady of Caribbean origin whose original name was Marlene Headley, and has chosen a southern African name, particularly used in Zimbabwe. NF is British. NF’s parents arrived in the UK from Barbados as part of the Windrush generation. Her mother was a nurse and her father was a British Rail worker. Any Brit of a Caribbean background will tell you that Caribbean and African cultures are different, have different histories, racial mixes, behaviours, psychology, they are different.
We know from school pupils’ success rates, exclusion rates, single parent family rates, involvement with crime rates and more, there is a radical difference between African school students and Caribbean-British school students, which I covered in a previous post, with graphs. So African cultures and peoples and Caribbean cultures and peoples are not the same. Any African person and any Caribbean person will tell you that.
I asked one of my friends of a Caribbean background how he is Muslim, how Islam came into the family because Caribbean people are usually Christian or Voodoo. He told me that his great grandfather was Mongolian hence Islam entered the family with him. His great grandfather in Jamaica was East Asian. The Caribbean is not Africa. Just like Poland is not Scotland. Both Polish and Scottish people have white skin, but they are totally different cultures with different languages, different ways of doing things and different psychologies due to different histories. The claim in the i newspaper that NF choosing an African name is fine and normal because Africans were “kidnapped” by “white” people and taken to the Caribbean (when it was Africans who sold Africans, and 9 million Africans are enslaved in Africa today, and Black Caribbeans enslave Black Caribbeans today and kidnap, rape and murder them too – I’m looking at you Haiti) is just ignorant of the differences in racial mixes, cultures, histories and languages of the Caribbean.
NF dresses in clothes and jewellery that can best be described as pan-African costume. NF is the lady who was asked by Lady Hussey where she was from. Considering that most Brits ask most people they meet where they are from, this was not unreasonable behaviour, and considering Ngozi Fulani was wearing exotic looking clothes that certainly set her apart from all the other attendees who had been invited to Buckingham Palace, it is not unreasonable for someone to take an interest in her appearance and to ask her country of origin.
It has been suggested by one African British youtuber that perhaps Lady Hussey thought that Ngozi Fulani did not understand the meaning of her question, “Where are you from?” because Ngozi Fulani gave evasive answers and seemed to want to cause an issue. Lady Hussey said that she had spent time in France, and then asked NF again, where are you from, which suggests that Lady Hussey was sharing a little of her own background in the hope of her and NF reaching an understanding that they had both lived in different countries. That is one African British woman’s take.
Anyways, let’s catch up on the poor love who was assaulted and abused at Buckingham Palace by Lady Hussey. NF’s charity Sistah Space – a domestic violence charity that caters for Black women – has had to close its doors in recent days. They have released this statement.
Now. Did anyone see coming the torrent of abuse that NF would get? Did anyone see it coming six months ago? I am against personal abuse of any kind. I liked Jeremy Corbyn for his stance against personal abuse… unless the person was Jewish, but that is another matter. I am against personal abuse of any kind, any kind of bullying. NF should not have been on the receiving end of any abusive messages, let alone a torrent of abuse.
We are where we are because NF made a big issue out of a tiny matter, calling racism where none was intended, causing an elderly woman to lose her job over a question that, being British and knowing what British people are like and what British people say to each other, I am fairly sure that Lady Hussey meant no harm. Like many, I believe that she was merely curious about someone who looked very different from everyone else.
Spot the odd one out. Who is dressed in the way that most Brits dress and who is not?
Is this what NF thinks African people look like? How African people dress? Maybe Scary Spice back in 1998 with the leopard print, but not any African I’ve ever met. The leopard print, the shell necklace, the African nations’ flag coloured head band. If a white person dressed like this, it would be assumed we were off to one of Prince Harry’s Colonialist And Natives parties and we would be rightly slammed for being racist.
For someone with a list of qualifications in African Studies, African dance and is the boss of a Black women’s organisation, I would have thought that NF would have known better than to play Dress Up As An African.
When someone asks, “Where are you from?” and your reply is, “I don’t know, they didn’t leave any records” (according to NF’s own twitter post), then perhaps NF’s conduct was not unimpeachable. Her words are hostile at best.
Yes, when I was younger, I dressed a little out there after trips to Camden Market, and my hair was cornrowed to an afro’d pony tail on top of my head. I was ill and could not take care of my hair, so I got it cornrowed. It was purely for health reasons, so with strong Celtic hair, it was either cornrow it or shave it off, and I don’t have the bone structure to look good with a shaved head, sadly.
My accent does drift because I have lived abroad and speak other languages and I spend a lot of time with non British born people. However, if someone asks where I’m from, I tell them, and I tell them I am English with a Scottish background and I apologise if my accent is off and I explain I’ve moved around a lot. There are times I can’t get the right word in English out so I hit my head a few times until I get the word out, or I switch languages. There was a moment over the summer when both my boss and I couldn’t get out what we wanted to say about losing a key, but we couldn’t say “key” and we were dancing around the word, so in the end, I said, “Sleutel”. Relief flooded over us both and we could then say, “no, I can’t find it”. I am proud of being British and that I come from such an amazing country with such an amazing history and culture.
NF could have thought ahead about her charity and she could have sought to protect her charity. NF could have been gracious and just let the matter go. She could have put her charity first and put the women who use her charity first. NF could have been the bigger person. Instead, NF put herself out there on several news channels, using the words “abuse” and “racism” about the royal household. Now her charity has had to close its doors. Those women who use the services of her charity no longer have access to it.
Who wins?
I know recently I have made a bad call on builders shouting at me from the building next to one of my work places. I should have ignored it, but I know that sometimes when you ignore things they get worse, but sometimes when you ignore things, they go away. I made a bad call and challenged the builders. They were not being sexist, just annoying. I should have ignored them like my colleague had. I didn’t ignore it, I made a thing out of it and it all blew up for an hour. Sure, the men and their female manager should not have threatened my manager but also, if I had ignored annoying but unimportant behaviour, it probably would have gone away and not blown up.
I get stuff wrong, especially with issues like this. That’s why I’m not the boss of a company. I make bad calls on some things. I know my limitations. I should have ignored the annoying but harmless comments. Ngozi could also have ignored annoying but harmless comments. Sadly for her, she is the boss of a company, and that company helps vulnerable women. She has a responsibility beyond herself. She has a responsibility to those women. When Sistah Space reopens, there will be more negative publicity and unnecessary focus on it and this will deter some women from using the service.
I guess the winners are the media who have sold more newspapers because of Ngozi’s claims of racism at Buck Pal and also all those sites that have got more clicks. So the wealthy have made more money out of this. The losers are the women who might be homeless now or staying in a house where they are in danger.
catherinehume 