It’s a story that sounds as if it could have come from half a century ago, rather than today. Ngozi Fulani, the head of the London-based domestic and sexual abuse charity Sistah Space, was at Buckingham Palace yesterday for a reception hosted by the Queen Consort, with the stated aim of stamping out ‘a global pandemic of violence against women.’ A noble cause, but unfortunately Ms Fulani encountered a member of the Buckingham Palace household staff, who, in Ms Fulani’s recounting, firstly moved her hair aside to see her name badge, and then asked her when she was from. ‘We’re based in Hackney.’ According to Fulani, the aide persisted. ‘No, what part of Africa are you from?’
Ms Fulani reportedly replied ‘I don’t know, they didn’t leave any records’, but the member of staff supposedly kept asking ‘Where are you from?’, ‘What nationality are you?’, ‘Where do your people come from?’, ‘Where do you really come from?’
Ms Fulani said she had been ‘stunned into silence’, and Mandu Reid, leader of the Women’s Equality Party and an eyewitness to the conversation, described it as ‘a really unpleasant interaction.’
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